Demon
by thedragonaunt
Summary: When Sherlock and Molly decided to try to have a relationship, nobody said it would be easy but does it have to be this hard? If you have read Unfinished Business you will get the references in this; if not, I hope you enjoy it anyway.
1. Chapter 1

**Disclaimer – I don't own the characters. They belong to ACD, MG and SM and the BBC. No one pays me to do this, I do it for love.**

**Demon**

**by**

**thedragonaunt**

**Prologue**

Molly lay on her side, watching his pale face, creased by a frown, illuminated by the pearl light of dawn which seeped through the curtains.

He vocalised in his sleep, reminiscent of a dog dreaming of chasing rabbits. If only it were that simple. He'd had nightmares before and she had shaken him out of them and held him, soothing away the agitation, until he drifted back to sleep but nothing had prepared her for last night, when she awoke to find his hand around her throat, squeezing the life from her. She had pounded her fists on his shoulders, trying to scream, until the shock of recognition appeared in his eyes.

Then he had been beside himself with mortification. He had wanted to leave, straight away, to go back to Baker Street. He wasn't safe to be around. He could have killed her. She had, at last, managed to calm him and persuade him to stay, promising to stay awake and watch over him. That part had not been difficult to achieve. It had been a long night and many thoughts had passed through her mind but she knew there was only one course of action. In the morning, she would ring Mycroft and tell him that Eve Matthews' services were needed again. There was still a demon inside his beautiful head that had to be exorcised before it destroyed both of them.

ooOoo


	2. Chapter 2

**Disclaimer – I don't own the characters. They belong to ACD, MG and SM and the BBC. No one pays me to do this, I do it for love.**

**Demon**

**by**

**thedragonaunt**

**Chapter One**

Molly never moved beyond that moment of awe and wonder that she had experienced, waking up beside him, that first morning. Each morning was like the first morning. 'Beside' was probably a misleading term. Sherlock did not do 'beside'. Every morning she would wake to find him coiled around her, like a smooth, warm snake and she would gently untangle his limbs and slide out from between them to tiptoe off to the bathroom. On that very first morning, it was on her return from the bathroom that she suddenly remembered something she had hidden away, in the wardrobe, those many months ago. She had opened the wardrobe door and felt around in the back until she found the plastic bag that held his blue dressing gown. Taking it out, she had looked across to the bed to find him looking at her through sleepy eyes. She had climbed back into bed and put the dressing gown into his hands and told him how she had found it after he had gone; how she had held it to her face and inhaled his scent and felt the exquisite pang of loss and bereavement; and he had held her in his arms and inhaled her scent and they had both marvelled, in their own minds, at what they had found in one another.

Sherlock was a gentle and sensuous lover. He seemed to derive infinite pleasure from exploring every inch of her body, learning what pleased her and then practicing those skills which gave her the most satisfaction. It was like an experiment and he applied the same rigour and total absorption as he would to any other. For his own gratification, he revelled in skin to skin contact and would press their bodies together until they almost occupied the same space and it was impossible to tell where one ended and the other began. And after they made love, there was no retreating to the cool corner of the bed. He would wrap himself around her and, with a long sigh of complete satiation, drift off to sleep.

When she thought of all those days, weeks, months and years that he had rebuffed her, keeping her at arm's length, but always right where he wanted her, at his beck and call, it was hard to be believe that now they shared a bed, a child and a life, of sorts. Each morning was not every morning. The nights he stayed were irregular – not once a week or every other day or now and then. Sometimes, especially if he were on a case, they would go for days without seeing him at all, although he did remember to text, to keep in touch, and then he would just appear, one night, tired but ecstatic at having solved the latest puzzle. Or, some times, he would come over to spend the evening but return home, after William went to bed, to resume his unravelling. She soon learned that his attitude to sex was similar to that which he had to food – he believed it slowed his thought processes and so was off limits during an investigation. So, some nights he would stay over and share a bed but not his body. But this was all part of who he was. Their life was never going to be conventional. She was fine with that.

Lestrade had been true to his word and, following the shift in attitude of the senior Met officers towards Sherlock, had been able to offer him regular consultancy work. They had found him a space, a side room, in the Black Museum – the museum of criminology which was housed within Scotland Yard and not open to the public. The museum was administered by a veteran police constable, who had been a faithful follower of John Watson's blog, before 'The Fall', who was tolerant of Sherlock's eccentricities and with whom Sherlock made an amicable peace. They mostly kept out of one another's way but, occasionally, PC Pearce would make Sherlock a coffee or wash up his empties – which were sometimes left abandoned until they grew penicillin cultures.

Some of the unsolved cases Sherlock was given to look at, he solved so easily that the officers who had been working on them wondered how they had not spotted the vital clue, it seemed so obvious. But, of course, in hind sight, everything is obvious once it has been pointed out. However, some were far more complex and Sherlock would become totally absorbed in them, burning the midnight oil, enlisting John's assistance and pursuing every possible line of enquiry until the solution were found. These times were so like the old days. Sherlock and John made a ritual of celebrating such successes with a meal – either at Angelo's or at the late night Chinese, just round the corner from Baker Street – before separating and returning to their respective homes. It was different but it still worked.

Bernadette Jamieson's case eventually came to court. She pled 'Not Guilty' and refused her barrister's suggestion that she plead Diminished Responsibility, brought on by grief at the loss of her son. The trial took three weeks and Mycroft sat in court every day. As witnesses, Sherlock and Molly were not able to do this, until they had given their evidence, after which they were there every day, too. The evidence was fairly conclusive – the circumstantial evidence alone would probably have achieved a conviction. Ms Jamieson's finger and foot prints were found in Molly's flat but the CCTV footage showed her being invited in there, so this was not admissible. However, her fingerprints were on the jammer device and on the gun which was used to shoot at Sherlock and William; the bullet recovered from near where they fell was matched to that gun. Her finger prints were also found on the clockwork torch, which Molly identified as the one she had been given to use in the container and hers and William's prints were on it, too. The images of Molly and William sent to Sherlock's phone were not admissible because, although it could be proven that the phone from which they were sent belonged to Ms Jamieson, it could not be proven that she sent them.

But, ultimately, she convicted herself because she was so convinced that she had been justified in her actions that she freely admitted, in the dock, that she had kidnapped Molly and William with the intension of killing them and Sherlock in revenge for her son's supposed murder. Moriarty's body was exhumed and forensic tests concluded that his injuries had been self-inflicted. He was later reburied in a cemetery local to Ms Jamieson's village home, in the Republic of Ireland. Ms Jamieson was found guilty of abduction, unlawful imprisonment, assault, attempted murder and various other charges, including illegal possession of a fire arm and discharging a firearm in a public place. The Judge deferred sentencing, pending a psychiatric assessment and, following this, Ms Jamieson was sent to Rampton Secure Hospital, in Nottinghamshire, for an indeterminate period, having been diagnosed with a psychopathic disorder. Sherlock, Molly, Mycroft, John and Mary, Greg Lestrade and Sally Donovan all went out for a meal to celebrate. The nightmare was over.

How foolish, Molly thought later, to tempt Fate in such a way, by imagining that everything would be fine now. It was not long after the trial ended that the real nightmare began.

ooOoo

It was a specific case that seemed to act as a trigger. Sherlock never discussed his cases with Molly. She rarely saw him when he was working on an investigation, unless he needed her help as a pathologist and, even then, he only told her as much as she needed to know. This case was a particularly gruesome murder. The body of a small man had been found under a bridge in a public park. It had been dumped there, having spent some time elsewhere and some of that time in deep freeze. It had been defrosted and had attained an advanced state of decomposition before it had been tossed, it would seem, off the bridge but, instead of landing in the river, it had landed on the bank and rolled under the bridge, disintegrating as it rolled. The rotting flesh had attracted the attention of the local wildlife, including rats and carrion birds and, eventually, a spaniel, owned by a local woman who walked her dog in that park quite regularly. Trace evidence had been taken but, due to the decomposition, even cause of death was inconclusive. Pressure on resources had caused the investigation to be scaled back and, ultimately, shelved but it was still, effectively, a live case.

When Sherlock picked up the case, he changed.

The signs were so subtle that they were barely noticeable, at first. He became restless in his sleep. Normally, once he was asleep, he never moved until morning. He was a completely static sleeper. Then, one night, not long after he started looking at the case of the Decomposing Dwarf (as John had initially named it, calling it a 'working title') he had become very restless and had woken up, in his own bed, completely tangled up in the duvet. He thought nothing of it. He could not remember dreaming that night. Maybe he was too cold or too hot or too something else. But this became a regular occurrence, that he would wake spread out on the bed, like a starfish, instead of curled in the foetal position, which was his usual sleeping posture.

Then he started to mutter and mumble, having long conversations, Molly noted, albeit one-sided, with some unknown opponent, which became increasingly agitated until he was shouting, at which point he would either wake himself up or she would wake him – if they were together – and, on one occasion, Mrs Hudson woke him, having come up stairs, thinking he was being attacked. But he could never remember the dream. Then he started to sleep walk. One night, he woke up in his kitchen, just standing in the middle of the room. He decided not to tell Molly about this, partly because it made him feel uncomfortable that he could be so not in control of his own body as to get up from his bed, put on his dressing gown and walk into his kitchen, in a state of unawareness. But, when Mrs Hudson heard a noise in the hall way and, getting up to investigate, found him standing outside the door to her flat, he had to tell someone; either he did or she would, Mrs Hudson told him.

He decided to talk to John. It was John who made the connection between the sleep disturbances and the case of the Decomposing Dwarf. He advised Sherlock to drop the case for a while. It was not as though it was urgent. The body had been discovered two years previously and had already been deceased for an indeterminate period of time and no one had reported a dwarf missing, which, in itself, was rather odd but those were the facts. So Sherlock had put the case aside.

But just one week later, Molly awoke to find Sherlock's hand squeezing her throat and this was a game changer. The Case of the Decomposing Dwarf became the Case of the Sleep-Disturbed Detective.

ooOoo

**This story is so impatient to be written, it won't wait its turn. It keeps creeping into my dreams so I have broken my rule of only writing one story at a time!**


	3. Chapter 3

**Disclaimer – I don't own the characters. They belong to ACD, MG and SM and the BBC. No one pays me to do this, I do it for love.**

**Chapter Two**

Molly slipped out of bed, into her dressing gown and out of the room. She walked down the passage to William's bathroom, peeping through the bedroom door to check on her sleeping son on the way. William was an early riser but not quite this early. He was still sleeping soundly. Having used the bathroom, she walked back along the passage and through the sitting room to the kitchen, to put on the kettle, closing all the intervening doors behind her. During her sleepless night, she had formulated a plan of action, in the way that her scientist's mind always dealt with challenges. Whatever it was that was troubling Sherlock, he needed all the support she could muster so top of her list of people to call was his best friend, John Watson. John was on night shift at St. Mary's this week. His stint would be coming to an end about now and he would be on his way home. Molly pressed his speed dial number on her mobile and he answered almost immediately.

'Hi, Molly. You're up early. Is William OK?' John enquired.

'Yes, John, William is absolutely fine, thanks. But I do need to speak to you about Sherlock.' Even as she started to speak, she could feel herself choking up. It had been a terrifying experience but her focus, up to this point, had been to comfort and care for her man. Now that help was at hand, though, her own feelings came rushing to the fore. John heard the emotion in her voice and was immediately concerned.

'What is it, Molly? Have you two had a row?'

'No, John, no, nothing like that. He ..er..he had a nightmare, I think..' she was finding it hard to speak now as heaving sobs began to wrack her body.

'I'm coming round, Moll, OK? Just hang in there. I'm just leaving work. I'll be there in about twenty minutes, OK?'

'Yes, thank you, John. I am OK, honestly. It's just been a long night, that's all. See you in a minute.' They rang off. Molly grabbed some kitchen towel off the roll on the counter top and cursed her over-active lacrimal glands. Why did she always cry? But then she remembered Eve Matthews strenuously advocating on behalf of crying as a safety valve and decided maybe it wasn't such a bad thing, after all. The kettle boiled and she made herself a cup of tea, carried it into the sitting room and curled up in her favourite chair. She was just finishing her tea when the entry phone buzzed. She went through to the hall and let John in. He greeted her with a warm, comforting hug and then gave her an appraising once-over, as she hung up his jacket and invited him through to the kitchen, to make more tea. Once seated at the table, he opened the conversation.

'Tell me what happened.'

As Molly related the events of the previous night, his face vividly reflected his feelings of shock and concern for both his friends. He reached across the table and took her hand in one of his, rubbing his brow with the other.

'Whatever it is that's causing this, the genie is obviously out of the bottle. I was hoping that, if he dropped the case, it would all stop but it looks as though that's actually made it worse.'

'I need to ring Mycroft and ask him to get Eve Matthews back. If this has anything to do with what Sherlock was doing whilst he was away, it must be buried really deep for her to miss it. It must have been something pretty awful.' Molly could hardly bare to think what that could possibly be. 'But he was so upset, John. He was horrified that he could have killed me. That's why I called you. He's going to need all our support to get him through this.' As she finished the sentence, the door to the passage opened and Sherlock came through the doorway, looking strained. John got up from the kitchen table and walked through to the sitting room, to meet him, putting his hand on Sherlock's arm.

'Hey, mate. Bad night, eh.'

Sherlock placed a reciprocal hand on his friend's shoulder and gave John a weak half-smile then moved past him, into the kitchen, where he bent and put his arms around Molly, from behind her chair, resting his head on her shoulder. She reached up and placed her hand on his cheek, turning her head to kiss his hair. John witnessed this touching and rare public display of affection, between his two friends, with mixed feelings. He was so happy for them both that they had finally found something together but deeply saddened that this black shadow was now hovering over their future happiness. After a brief moment, Sherlock straightened up and turned to switch on the kettle. He busied himself, making a pot of tea for all three of them, and John returned to his seat at the table. Pot of tea ready, Sherlock took a seat, also, and, elbows on the table, steepled his fingers into the prayer position, under his chin. Molly opened the batting.

'Eve Matthews could help, don't you think?'

'I can't think of anyone better,' Sherlock agreed. She could tell he was not relishing the idea of renewing his acquaintance with the psychotherapist but he was resigned to the necessity of it.

'I'll ring Mycroft, then,' said Molly, with an affirmative nod. 'He can arrange for her to see you, as soon as possible. It's going to be alright, Sherlock. We'll deal with this, together.'

He looked down at the table, then at Molly and said,

'I can't stay here again until this has been sorted. It's too dangerous for you and William. If anything were to happen to either of you….well, we just can't risk that.'

'You mustn't isolate yourself, though, Sherlock,' John interjected. 'None of that 'Alone protects me' bollocks, alright?' Sherlock had to allow a brittle smile.

'You will never let me forget that, will you?' he huffed.

'Not a chance,' John replied.

Just then, the sitting room door was pushed open again and William appeared, dressed in his Spiderman pyjamas, his dark wavy hair tousled from sleep. At three years and a few months, he was quite tall for his age, already wearing '4/5 years' clothing. He no longer attended the hospital crèche but, at Mycroft's insistence, had been enrolled at a good prep school, nearby, in the Foundation department. The hours of attendance were not so convenient for Molly's work schedule as the hospital crèche had been but Mycroft, once again, had come up with a viable solution. He had persuaded Molly to allow him to employ a live-out nanny, who collected William from school and took care of him, at home, until Molly arrived back from work. Marie was a pleasant young woman, well qualified, and with impeccable references from a colleague of Mycroft's, for whom she had been nanny, previously. Molly had been dubious about allowing someone else responsibility for her child and access to her home but Marie's former employer assured her that she was accustomed to working for high-profile families, was completely trustworthy and discrete and also security aware. Sherlock advised Molly to accept Mycroft's offer, since his heart was set on it and it really was in William's best interests to transfer to a more academic environment. He was clearly very bright and was becoming a bit disruptive at the crèche, due primarily to boredom. Sherlock was the first to acknowledge that, when it came to things like education, Mycroft would have done very thorough research on all the nearest prep schools to find the one that offered the best standard of education.

'You might as well agree to it, Molly. He will only keep nagging until you do,' Sherlock had pointed out. He and Molly visited the school, met all the relevant people and asked all the usual questions, and really could find no fault in the place. They had then met with Marie, inviting her to the flat to meet William, too. She impressed them with her like-minded ideas on child care and William seemed to like her, so she was taken on for a six months probationary period, which was now about half way through.

As William made his appearance, Molly looked at the kitchen clock and said,

'Oh, god, look at the time. I'd better get you ready for school and me ready for work.' Sherlock intervened.

'You go and get yourself ready. I'll get him ready. Hey, Will, what's for breakfast today?' William clambered onto a chair and, after due consideration, declared,

'Weetabix, daddy, please.'

'Coming right up,' Sherlock replied.

John also looked at the kitchen clock and declared that he needed to get home and 'get some kip' and also that Mary would wonder what had happened to him. He had called her on his way over to let her know he would be late but had not gone into detail about why. He took his leave and walked to the tube station to catch a train. Knowing Sherlock had never been boring but John sometimes wondered at the complications that his friend had to deal with in his everyday life. Nothing ever seemed to be straight forward for him. He was so grateful for his own circumstances. Thinking back to the how, where and why of his first meeting with the Consulting Detective, he did marvel at his own good fortune. He had been in a very bad place, back then. Recently invalided out of the army, thrown back into civilian life with no idea in which direction he might go, he had been wracked with guilt at the realisation that, far from being traumatised by his war experiences, he actually missed the adrenalin rush that living on red alert had given him. Things could have gone very badly for him – there was a family history of alcohol abuse – had it not been for his chance encounter with the 'high-functioning sociopath' whom he now called his best friend. He owed Sherlock his life, in a very real sense. And, in turn, Sherlock owed him his. This made for a very special bond between the two men. They were comrades in arms and would follow one another to the ends of the earth. John would see Sherlock through this new crisis, if it were the last thing he ever did.

ooOoo

Molly came back into the kitchen, ready for work, to find William all dressed and ready, too, just finishing off his Weetabix. Sherlock pushed a plate of toast across to Molly and she grabbed a slice, picked up her bag and stretched up to give him a peck on the cheek.

'Oh, sh….oot!' she said, correcting herself just in time, eyeing William. 'I haven't called Mycroft.'

'Don't worry,' Sherlock assured her, 'I'll go and see him myself. I've got nothing else to do and it is top of my priority list. Honestly, I will go.' She reached up and kissed him again, took William's hand and they both left.

Playing the househusband did not exactly come naturally to Sherlock but he was learning. He loaded the dish washer with the breakfast things and set it to 'Rinse', tidied everything away and wiped down the surfaces. John would be amazed, he thought. He'd never managed to get him to wash up a cup! Going into the bedroom, he stripped off and went into the en suite shower. Showering and shaving gave him time to think. If only he could remember what he had been dreaming about the night before, or any of the other nights when he had done weird things, but he could not recall a single detail. That, in itself, had to be odd, didn't it? He wondered whether a visit to his Mind Palace might yield something but he didn't even know where to begin. What part of the case was the trigger? He began to make a mental list:

Dwarf

Decomposing

Bridge

River

Park

Frozen

Defrosted

Found by a dog walker

Eaten by rats and crows

Two years ago

That was quite a list, just for starters. He felt sure he could add to it, if he really set his mind to it. Having dried and dressed, and brushed his hair, he walked through the flat to the front hall, put on his coat and scarf and let himself out of the flat. Walking round the crescent to the main road to pick up a cab, he texted Mycroft to find out where he was. In his office, came back the reply, so he hailed a cab and asked it to take him to Whitehall.

Sherlock was admitted to Mycroft's office by his PA, Anthea. Mycroft looked up from a paper he was reading, opened a drawer in the right side pedestal of his desk and, placing the paper inside, closed and locked the drawer.

'To what do I owe this pleasure?' he asked his brother, indicating with a wave of his hand for Sherlock to take a seat. Sherlock removed his coat, laid it over the back of the leather wing chair and sat down. Placing his elbows on the arms of the chair, he put his hands together, under his chin and ordered his thoughts. At last, he spoke.

'I need to see Eve Matthews again. There's something going on inside my head that I don't understand.' Mycroft took in this information, pursed his lips, reached across to the intercom on his desk, pressed a button and said,

'Tea for two, please, Anthea.' Sitting back, he mirrored his brother's posture with his hands and the two men looked at one another until the door opened and Anthea came in with a tea tray. She placed it on the table, in front of Sherlock's chair and looking towards her boss, picked up the subtle signal that meant she need not serve the tea, nodded and left the room. Mycroft rose from his chair, walked around the desk and poured two cups of tea before sitting in the matching leather wing chair, opposite Sherlock's. They both took a sip of their tea. Ritual observed, Mycroft raised an eyebrow, to request more information.

'I've been suffering sleep disturbances for about a month, which would indicate that I am suffering nightmares but I can never remember the dreams.'

'What sort of sleep disturbances?' Mycroft asked.

'Tossing and turning, talking, shouting, sleep walking and then, last night – ' he paused, finding it quite hard to say the next part, 'I nearly strangled Molly.' Mycroft raised both eyebrows this time.

'And you don't remember the dreams at all?'

'Not a thing.'

'And what do you think has triggered these dreams?' Sherlock told him about the case he had been working on for the Met.

'Well, I think you are quite correct. You do need to see Eve Matthews,' Mycroft agreed. He took his mobile phone from his pocket, selected Eve's icon and rang her number. When she answered, he said,

'I have an urgent assignment for you.' He paused for her reply then said, 'Thank you, that will be satisfactory,' and rang off. Looking up at his brother, he said,

'She will be here in ten minutes.' Sherlock nodded and continued to sip his tea.

ooOoo

**A/N: Please review! If you like my story, please tell me why; if you don't, please tell me (nicely) why not. **


	4. Chapter 4

**Disclaimer – I don't own the characters. They belong to ACD, MG and SM and the BBC. No one pays me to do this, I do it for love.**

**Chapter Three**

Eve Matthews arrived, looking cool, calm and collected, ten minutes later. She clearly had not come far – most likely she had already been in the building, Sherlock suspected. Mycroft offered her his seat and a cup of tea. She accepted the former and declined the latter. Mycroft went back to sit behind his desk and steepled his fingers, in the classic Holmesian pose. Having settled in her seat, Eve looked at the two brothers, in turn, waiting for one of them to explain the reason for her being there. Sherlock took the initiative.

'I'm not sleeping well,' he began.

She nodded and waited for him to qualify this statement,

'When I do sleep, I have dreams that make me do weird things but I can never remember the dreams.'

'And the 'weird things' would be…?' she asked.

He explained the nature of those weird things, ending with the incident of the previous night. Having heard him out, Eve considered the situation for a moment or two then drew a deep breath.

'OK, well, clearly, something that has buried itself very deeply in your subconscious has decided it wants out. When did this start?'

He explained about the case of the Decomposing Dwarf.

'So did this begin as soon as you started investigating this case or was it some time into the investigation?'

'It started as soon as I began looking at the case. I had just read through the case notes, that afternoon and, the same night, I woke up tangled up in my duvet, which is unheard of for me. I sleep like the dead.'

'OK, well, that confirms the trigger area, at least. Have you made a list of possible factors?' He repeated to her the list he had come up with in the shower, plus a couple of additional ones that had occurred since.

'That gives us something to work on,' she concluded. 'When can we begin?'

'The sooner the better,' Sherlock stated. 'I need to get this out of my head, for Molly and William's sake…'

'And for your own sake,' Mycroft interjected. Sherlock shrugged, as though this were a minor consideration but, in his heart of hearts he knew it was for him too. He could not now imagine life without his little nuclear family and, until this was sorted, he must be estranged from them, for their own safety. This prospect filled him with a deeper pain than he could ever own to.

'I don't think I need tell you, Sherlock, that once we start delving around in your memory, we could go to some very dark places,' Eve warned.

Sherlock nodded.

'We will need to be somewhere secure. There is a fair chance that your subconscious will fight hard to hang on to its secrets so things could get nasty.'

Sherlock nodded again, looking far more calm and relaxed than he actually felt.

'We need to consider methods,' she continued. Both men were listening.

'How do you feel about hypnosis?

'I think I would be a bad subject, due to low susceptibility,' Sherlock replied.

'I would agree that you would most likely come into the bottom ten percent of the population in terms of your susceptibility but that can be overcome.'

'How?' he asked.

'Motivation is one factor. You want to get this sorted so you could increase your own susceptibility. Also, trust. Your trust in the practitioner, that she is doing her best for you, could make you more co-operative and therefore more susceptible.' He considered those possibilities.

'Then there is the use of psychoactive medication…'

'No!' Mycroft interposed, forcefully. Eve and Sherlock both looked at him.

'Not with your history, Sherlock. It would be far too risky,' he insisted.

'Not if it were properly managed,' Sherlock proposed.

'No, I forbid it!' Mycroft was adamant.

'You can't forbid it, Mycroft. You're not my mother!' Sherlock retorted.

Eve interceded.

'Gentlemen, please. These are just possibilities. The use of psychoactive medication can be kept as a last resort, if all else fails. I don't think we should rule it out entirely.'

'Irene Adler shot me full of something in that category. It didn't turn me into a hopeless addict, did it?' Sherlock put it to his brother.

'I just feel you should be cautious about taking such a risk,' Mycroft explained, in a more conciliatory tone.

'Very well, brother, I will be cautious,' Sherlock agreed. Then, turning back to Eve, he asked,

'What else do you have in your box of tricks, Doctor?'

'You have already experienced most of my techniques, Sherlock. These are probably the only two we did not get around to using with you. I think we will start by backtracking. These memories were totally suppressed when we last met. They are closer to the surface now, so they may respond to less invasive methods. If they don't, then we have these other tricks up our sleeves.' They all seemed to agree that the matter of 'how' had been fully considered. The next question was 'where'.

'Not here,' said Mycroft, emphatically. 'Or Vauxhall either. I'm not having my brother interrogated alongside terrorists.'

Sherlock found his sibling's sensibilities rather amusing but Eve Matthews agreed that it would be inappropriate.

'There's St Hugh's,' she suggested. This was a new name to Sherlock but clearly the other two were more than familiar with it.

'Yes, I think that would be perfect, actually,' Mycroft mused.

'Perhaps you would consider letting me in on this conversation?' Sherlock commented, acerbically.

'St Hugh's is a military facility used to treat extreme cases of PTSD. Its existence is not in the public domain. Top Secret, one might say,' Mycroft explained.

'Oh, right,' Sherlock nodded, knowingly, 'So if it all goes pear-shaped, you can just throw away the key and no one will be any the wiser. I'm not sure I like the sound of that.'

Eve smiled, reassuringly.

'Don't worry, Sherlock. I am quite certain that, were you to disappear, neither John Watson nor Molly would rest until they had sniffed you out. You must get over your trust issues.'

'I don't have trust issues. I KNOW I can't trust either of you,' he replied.

'Ok,' she concluded. 'I will make a phone call and we can leave right away, if that is OK with you.'

'I'll need to stop off at Baker Street to pick up some personal effects,' he explained, 'then I'm all yours.'

ooOoo

Molly finished cleaning down the examination table where she had just completed the post mortem examination of a man who had died suddenly and alone. Cause of death was, unequivocally, cardiac arrest. No mystery here. She would write her report and sign the death certificate. Having completed the clean-up and sterilisation of the area, she went into the staff changing room to get out of her scrubs. Opening her locker, she heard the text alert ping on her mobile. She took out the phone and opened the message.

'Working with Eve. May be some time. Don't worry. Love to William. SH'.

She sat down on the sofa, reading the message over and over and feeling desolate. Of course, it was essential he deal with this problem but that did not make it any easier cope with his absence. 'Working with Eve' meant he would be incommunicado, beyond reach – just like when he went away. All those feelings of loss came flooding in, transporting her back to that dreadful morning, all those months ago, when he had walked out of her life and into terrible danger. She took some deep breaths and reminded herself that this was quite different. There was danger here but of a different kind and the people around him would at least be on his side, there to help him, take care of him, keep him safe.

'Please keep him safe' she prayed, silently, holding the mobile phone to her heart, as though, by communicating his thoughts, it held his essence.

Getting back to work, she used the mundane nature of the tasks as an anaesthetic to dull the pain of her distress. Keep busy, she thought; don't give yourself time to think.

Walking home, that evening, she wondered what time John Watson might be waking up for his night shift at St Mary's. She decided to risk it and rang his mobile number. He answered straight away.

'Yes, Molly, I got a text,' were his opening words. He did not disclose the content of that message, which was,

'Back in the wringer. Please look after Molly and Will. SH.'

'Molly, I've been thinking.' He paused there, where Sherlock would have made some cutting quip: Wonders will never cease; Careful now; what's the occasion? To name but three. Molly, being far more polite, waited patiently for him to continue.

'This case of the Decomposing Dwarf holds the key to all this. I was thinking I might investigate it, myself, but I couldn't do it alone. I was wondering if you would help me.'

Molly was taken quite by surprise by this left field idea, so much so that she could not come up with a reply.

'Are you still there?' John asked.

'Yes, John, I am, sorry,' she answered. 'You just threw me for a minute, there. Do you really think we could do that? Do you think the Met would let us?'

'We won't know if we don't try, on both counts,' he replied. 'I'm going to ring Greg Lestrade and put the proposal to him. Are you up for it?' She did not even need to think about it.

'Count me in,' she replied, emphatically.

John wasted no time ringing Lestrade and explaining what he had in mind.

'I don't know, John. I mean, yeah, the Assistant Commissioner agreed that you could assist Sherlock with his investigations but I can't see him agreeing to you investigating on your own.'

'So don't tell him,' John replied.

'How can I not tell him? Do you want to get me sacked?'

'I am assisting Sherlock. He is off doing field work and I am doing the paperwork, back at the office. Does he come into the Yard every day? No. Sometimes he doesn't come in for days, if he's off looking at the scene of the crime, yeah? Come on, Greg, it scans, it's plausible.'

Greg Lestrade had to admit, it was plausible.

'How long is he going to be doing this…..whatever it is he's doing?' Lestrade was still nervous about the idea.

'A week, max,' John bluffed. 'No one will even know he's been away.'

The D.I. felt his resolve slipping. He wanted to help his friends.

'OK, John, I'm going to say yes but, listen and take note, if this all goes tits up I will deny all knowledge. I have to think about my career, you know,' Lestrade conceded.

'You won't regret this,' John heaved a sigh of relief.

'I wish I had your faith,' Lestrade replied, wryly.

'I'll be in tomorrow, about lunch time. See you then,' John informed him and rang off. He immediately text Molly to say: 'We're on.' Then he switched his focus to getting ready for work.

ooOoo

St Hugh's turned out to be strangely reminiscent of home. It was housed in a Victorian mansion, in Berkshire, set in acres of parkland, surrounded by a very secure perimeter fence. The entrance to the driveway was marked by a Check-point Charlie guard room and barrier. As the black limousine carrying Sherlock and Eve approached, the barrier lifted automatically to admit them, triggered, Sherlock imagined, by some device fitted to the car. Making its way up the curved drive, it came to a halt on the gravel expanse by the front entrance. The chauffeur jumped out and opened the car door for Eve, then took their cases from the boot and followed them into the building.

They were met by a soldier in fatigues, who saluted them then asked them both to sign a log book, which asked for their names, their time of arrival and the nature of their business. Eve filled in the details, giving a code number for the nature of their business, and Sherlock signed his name, trying to avoid thoughts of 'signing away his life'. From there, they were led by an orderly up the grand stair case and along a broad balcony, which overlooked the entrance hall, then down a side corridor to a door, which the orderly opened with a key card, then stood back to allow Sherlock and Eve to enter the room ahead of him. It was a large, well-appointed en suite room, with a Queen-sized bed, a sofa, a table and two chairs, fitted wardrobes, a suitcase stand, a TV and two floor-to-ceiling sash windows. The orderly placed Sherlock's valise on the stand and went to wait for Eve outside the door. Sherlock stood in the middle of the room, looking round.

'Make yourself comfortable,' she told him, then said, 'I'm afraid I have to ask for your phone.'

He took his phone from his jacket pocket, pressed the button on the top to initiate the switch off sequence, swiped the 'Power Off' bar and handed it to her.

'Is this the only phone you have?' she asked.

He responded by extending his arms out to the side, inviting her to search him.

'I'll take your word for it,' she conceded, 'but be advised that the rooms are all bugged, for sight and sound and you will be monitored at all times.'

'I'm used to that,' he replied. 'Big brother is always watching me.'

'We will have our first session after lunch. You will take all your meals in your room.'

Sherlock acknowledged this information with a nod and Eve left, the door closing behind her with a sharp click, as the lock engaged.

He took off his coat and draped it over the back of the sofa; removed his jacket and hung it on the back of one of the chairs. Then he lay down on the bed and closed his eyes. He was apprehensive to the extreme and needed a distraction, to calm his nerves. He decided on a visit to his Mind Palace. Recalling the list he had devised that morning, he began with 'dwarf'. Breathing deeply and evenly, he focused on the word and began to free-associate.

'Dwarf – Warwick Davis – Ewok – Star Wars – R2D2 – Princess Leah – Han Solo – Millennium Falcon – falconer - bird of prey – jesses – hood – mews – stoop.' He abandoned this chain as it seemed to have gone in a non-productive direction.

He went back to the beginning.

'Dwarf – Achondroplasia – Diastrophic Dysplasia – proportionate dwarfism – ! Something jolted in his brain and his eyes flew open. Proportionate dwarfism? That was significant. He had no idea why.

He closed his eyes again.

'Proportionate Dwarfism – metabolic disorder – growth hormone deficiency – pygmies - !' Another jolt – not as strong as the first but a definite hit.

He began again.

'Pygmies – Central Africa – Australia – Thailand – Malaysia – Indonesia – Philippines – Papua New Guinea – Brazil - !'

Brazil. That was very significant. His body was reacting to Brazil. His pulse rate increased, his mouth felt dry, his skin felt cold and his stomach clenched - classic fight or flight response. He had been to South America, on his travels. He'd been to Venezuela, Guyana, Suriname…had he been to Brazil? He couldn't remember. How could he not remember? Either he had been to Brazil or he hadn't. He should know one way or another. But he didn't. There was a gap in his memory.

He sat up, feeling tight in his chest, hyperventilating. He consciously slowed his breathing, willing his heart rate to ease. He leaned forward and put his head in his hands, feeling light-headed and faint, with a roaring sound in his ears. The door opened and Eve came in and straight over to the bed. Putting one hand on the back of his head and the other on his shoulder, she eased him back onto the pillow, lifted his legs onto the bed and rolled him over into the recovery position. He was aware of all this but felt disassociated, as though it were happening to someone else. She rubbed his back and spoke soothingly. Gradually, his head cleared, the roaring stopped and his heart rate returned to normal. He rolled over onto his back and put his hand up to his forehead. Eve went into the bathroom and came back with a glass of water.

'Here, drink this,' she said, helping him to sit up and putting the glass into his hand. He took a few deep draughts then leaned back against the headboard. She sat on the edge of the bed and looked at him.

'So what was that all about?' she asked.

'Brazil, apparently,' he replied, his voice not sounding quite like his own.

'I don't remember Brazil.'

ooOoo


	5. Chapter 5

**Disclaimer – I don't own the characters. They belong to ACD, MG and SM and the BBC. No one pays me to do this, I do it for love.**

**Chapter Four**

Molly put her key in the door of her flat and called out to William, to let him and Marie know she was home. Before she had even taken off her coat, William flew through the doorway, from the sitting room.

'Mummy! Uncle Mytoft's here!' he crowed, hugging her round her middle and smiling up at her. He still hadn't quite got the hang of Mycroft's name but Molly suspected that the sobriquet would persist long after William had mastered the received pronunciation. Having greeted his mother, William ran back the way he had come and Molly followed him into the sitting room to find him and Mycroft sitting side by side on the sofa, watching the Nature programme, about deadly animals, that William loved. Mycroft rose from his seat to greet Molly, with pecks on both cheeks, then went back to the TV show. Marie was in the kitchen, making tea so Molly walked through to catch up on William's day, from her.

'There's a letter in his back pack about violin lessons,' Marie explained. 'They are starting a group in the Foundation unit. It's part of a national scheme to get more children playing musical instruments. They have access to specially made mini violins. I think it's similar to the system they have in Japan.'

'Well, I know exactly what Sherlock will say so I'd better sign it and he can take it back tomorrow. I suppose I'll just have to get some ear plugs until he gets past the 'strangled cat' phase.' The two women both giggled at that thought. Having made the tea for Molly and Mycroft, Marie took her leave and said she would see Molly the next evening. Friday was a half day for William at school, until he turned four, so Marie usually took him somewhere on a Friday afternoon. The Natural History Museum was always popular, as was the Science Museum, which had lots of interactive displays that he could try out. Marie had not yet decided where they would go the next day but she assured Molly she would text her, to let her know. Since the incident with Bernadette Jamieson, Molly always needed to know where William was.

Molly carried the tea tray into the sitting room and put it on the coffee table, pouring a cup each for her and Mycroft. She knew that Mycroft must have news of Sherlock but he would not discuss it in front of William. She would have to suffer in silence until William had gone to bed. She sipped her tea and tried not to think about what he might have to say. Then she went back to the kitchen and started to prepare supper.

After supper, Mycroft was coerced by William to preside over bath night and then had the honour of presenting bed time story, too, after which he returned to the sitting room. Molly had opened a bottle of Merlot and poured two large glasses. Mycroft flopped down onto the sofa and took a large swig of wine before turning to Molly, who was watching him, anxiously.

'They have had a break through, already,' Mycroft announced. Molly looked expectant. She knew he would not be able to go into detail about the nature of the breakthrough but she hoped he would give her a little more information.

'He was using his Mind Palace technique and he remembered something – or rather he remembered that he had forgotten something. I'm sorry to be so obtuse but I have to be careful not to say too much. Any way, they have managed to establish a time period and a geographical area wherein the incident – whatever it may have been – took place. This is quite significant. It makes it far more likely that they will uncover the hidden memories, now that they at least know where to look.'

Molly dared to feel hopeful that Sherlock's ordeal would soon be over.

'John and I have decided to continue investigating the case that started all this,' she disclosed to Mycroft. He looked surprised and a little amused.

'How do you propose to do that?' he asked.

'I don't know, really, but John thinks it may help unlock Sherlock's memories, if we can find out more about the dwarf,' she replied.

'Well, I don't suppose it can do any harm but, Molly, don't put too much faith in that theory. Just because the dwarf case was a trigger, it does not mean that it has much in common with the original scenario. It could be a very obscure link.'

Molly agreed that this was good advice but explained that she needed to keep her mind occupied and this would give her something to focus on. Mycroft could see the sense in that and did not put forward any more objections.

ooOoo

John walked into the Black Museum at New Scotland Yard just after on o'clock the next afternoon. He had only had four hours sleep after his night shift at St Mary's A and E but, fortunately, it had been a quiet night so he had managed to grab a couple of hours in the duty doctors' room, during the lull. He greeted PC Pearce and went into the side room that was Sherlock's work space.

The furnishing consisted of a desk, two chairs and a filing cabinet. On the desk was a phone, a lamp and a used coffee cup. John felt under the desk and found the key to the filing cabinet attached to the underside by a piece of blu-tac. Removing his jacket, he put it over the back of one of the chairs and unlocked the filing cabinet, opening the top drawer. Inside, he found a jar of instant coffee, a box of tea bags and a bag of sugar, with a metal spoon sticking out of the top. There was also a hard, blue rubber squash ball. He closed that drawer and opened the next one down. Here, he found the files of the cases Sherlock was working on at the moment. He leafed through them until he found the one pertaining to the dead dwarf. Pulling it out, he had to smile when he saw, scribbled on the plain brown cover, in Sherlock's scrawled upper case, 'THE CASE OF THE DECOMPOSING DWARF'. So, he might scoff at John's naming of his cases but maybe he was not as averse to it as he made out. Taking the file with him, John sat at the desk and, opening the file in front of him, began to read.

About an hour later, he tossed the contents of the file onto the desk and sat back, frowning. After a moment or two of thought, he checked the name on the front of the documents, to see who the officer was in charge of this case, picked up the phone, pressed '0' and waited for the switch board operator to respond. When he did, John asked to be put through to DI Browning's office. Moments later, a voice at the other end said,

'D Division.'

John asked to speak to DI Browning or his deputy.

'That would be me, DS Cromer. How can I help you?'

John identified himself as John Watson, Sherlock Holmes' assistant, then went on,

'I'm just looking at this case of the corpse that was dumped under the bridge in Battersea Park. Can I ask where the body is now?'

'Erm, in the Westminster Public Mortuary, I believe, in deep freeze,' the officer informed him.

'And the tissue samples that were taken during the post mortem, where are they?' John asked.

'Same place, mate. Everything will be stored there until the case is solved.'

'And is that where the PM took place?' John asked, for clarification.

'Yes, that's correct. That is where all the PM's are done for the police.'

John thanked him for his assistance and was just about to ring off when he had an afterthought.

'If I wanted to request a second PM, who would I need to ask?'

'You'd have to present a good case to the Coroner. Only they can sanction a second PM.'

John thanked him again and rang off, immediately going back to the switch board and asking to be connected with the Public Mortuary at Westminster. While he waited to be put through, he looked at the name of the doctor on the PM report. When he was picked up at the other end, he asked to speak to Dr Rogers.

'I'm sorry, Dr Rogers is no longer with us,' came the reply, followed by, 'not in a 'shuffled off his mortal coil' sense, you understand. He retired nearly two years ago.'

John had to smile at the typical mortuary humour of the person on the other end of the line. He introduced himself and asked who he was speaking to.

'Dr Guyt, at your service,' the voice advised him.

'I'm calling from New Scotland Yard. I'm looking into a case for which Dr Rogers did the PM, two years ago and, frankly, I'm a bit confused.'

'What's the problem?' Dr Guyt asked.

'Well, to be honest, just about everything. The PM report is patchy, to say the least, and the procedure, to be frank, is piss poor. The subject was a dwarf, found dumped in a public place, no ID. There's no DNA test, no genetic test and no tox screen. I would call those major omissions, wouldn't you?'

'Yes, I would have to agree with you, there, but I can't say I'm surprised. Old Rogers couldn't wait to retire. He was just marking time toward the end.'

'Well, I'd like to take another look at the samples gathered and maybe do a second PM,' John advised

'Oh, are you a pathologist, doctor?'

'No, but I know someone who is,' he replied.

ooOoo

Following Sherlock's adverse reaction to his discoveries in his Mind Palace, Eve Matthews decided to defer beginning their formal sessions until the following day. She advised him to rest, so he vegged out in front of the television. She also told him not to risk another visit to the Mind Palace until they had discussed what had happened in detail. He was more than willing to comply with that directive. He had been quite shocked by the effect it had had on him. He was really glad he hadn't tried it at home and that there had been help at hand.

After a disturbed night's sleep and a meagre breakfast – from choice, as the food served was far from meagre – Sherlock was collected from his room and taken to a second room in another part of the house. It was comfortably furnished with four easy chairs and a coffee table. Eve was there with two men, who all stood up when Sherlock entered the room. Eve introduced them as Dr Keynes and Dr Hemmings. Following these introductions, they all sat down.

'These two gentlemen will be assisting me with this process. We will work, in three shifts, round the clock to monitor you and also to conduct these sessions. If anything significant happens when I am not here, they will call me in. I will be your principle therapist throughout.'

Sherlock nodded to show he understood and he that he agreed to this arrangement. That settled, the two male doctors excused themselves and left and another man came in. Eve introduced him as Arthur, a psychiatric nurse, who would be present during all the session. Sherlock acknowledged him with a nod. She also pointed out the cameras in the room and explained that all the sessions would be recorded. Sherlock acknowledged that, too. Then they got down to business.

'When we last met, we covered your South American mission,' Eve began and Sherlock nodded.

'At that time, you made no mention of going to Brazil.'

Sherlock agreed.

'Why was that?'

'I had no memory of going to Brazil. I still have no memory of going to Brazil but I think I must have been there,' Sherlock stated.

'Let's go over your operation in South America again, from the beginning,' she suggested.

Sherlock sat back in his chair, closed his eyes briefly and then began.

'I went to South America, posing as a negotiator for an Anglo-American organised crime syndicate, to meet with a poppy farmers' cartel, to negotiate a deal whereby the cartel would sell their produce exclusively to the syndicate I represented. A bit like Tesco, negotiating exclusive rights with Lincolnshire farmers for their potatoes – but with private armies and assault rifles.'

'I never knew the Lincolnshire farmers were so militant,' Eve commented.

'Nor I. Big surprise,' Sherlock replied, then went on, in a more serious vein.

'The cartel had been bankrolled by Moriarty and one of his lieutenants was the man at the top, calling the shots. He was the only person who could sanction the deal. The plan was that I should arrange to meet with him then, through my contact, pass on the information and he would be neutralised.'

'So, how did that work?'

'In Venezuela, I met up with a representative in Caracas. I jumped through some hoops, passed some tests and was moved along the line to Guyana. In Georgetown, I met another representative, jumped through some more hoops and passed some more tests and was moved along to Suriname. In Paramaribo, I met another representative, jumped through still more hoops and passed still more tests and was about to be moved on down the line to Brazil but, at that point, I lost my contact.'

'How did that happen?'

'No idea. He just missed a contact point. I waited twenty-four hours and when he missed the second contact point, I aborted the mission.'

'Why did you do that?'

'The point of the mission was that I should set up a meeting with the target, give the details to my contact who would then call in the team who would neutralize the target. Without my contact, I couldn't pass on the details of the meeting so there was no point in meeting. So I aborted the mission.'

'How did you do that?'

There was a number I had to ring, give a code word and they would give me a GPS coordinate. I would meet them there and they would lift me out.'

'So is that what you did?'

'Yes, as I told you last time.' He was aware that his palms were beginning to sweat.

'What route did you take?'

'Overland to Bogota.' His heart rate was increasing.

'Would it not have been easier to go by boat to one of the Caribbean islands?'

He was beginning to tremble but he tried to relax.

'At the time, that was considered too obvious.' He paused, finding it hard to concentrate.

'We assumed they were onto us. They had pirates operating in the Caribbean, using high speed cigarette boats; they could have intercepted us.' His breath was catching in his throat, making it difficult to speak.

'The overland route was considered more viable.' He rubbed his hands over his scalp and tried to calm his breathing.

'Now, what date did your contact disappear?'

He had to think very hard to recall the date.

'January 4th,' he said, at last.

'And you surfaced in Bogota on January 26th.'

'I got to Bogota on January 26th, yes.' He leaned forward and put his head in his hands.

'So it took you three weeks to get from Paramaribo to Bogota.'

'Yes,' he said, shaking his head in an attempt to clear it. 'It would seem so, yes.'

'Do you remember that journey?'

He screwed up his eyes and searched his memory for something concrete to latch onto but, every time he thought he had something, it slipped away. Turning his head to one side, as if listening for a prompt, he stammered,

'I remember…walking.'

'Do remember who you were with?'

Once again, his memory refused to co-operate. Every time he tried to focus on a face or a voice, it slid out of reach. He shook his head and put his hands up to his head.

'Last time you spoke to me, you described that journey in detail – names, places, incidents along the way.'

Sherlock lowered his hands and looked at her over his fingertips, feeling febrile and confused.

'I suspect that those were false memories, created by your subconscious to mask the true memories. The fact that you can't access them now suggests to me that the true memories are trying to emerge. We need to give them a helping hand.'

'What do you mean?' he asked, completely exposed and verging on panic.

She reached out and touched his arm.

'I think we should stop there. You've had enough, for now.'

He felt exhausted, on the point of collapse but he needed to know what she was inferring.

'Tell me what you mean,' he insisted.

'I've revised my opinion of you as a subject for hypnosis. I think you would be a very good subject. You already practice self-hypnosis.'

He looked at her, blankly.

'That Mind Palace thing of yours is a form of self-hypnosis. You put yourself into a receptive state, open your mind and see where it takes you.'

Sherlock had never thought of his Mind Palace technique in this way but it did seem to fit.

'I think we should go with that approach, since you are less likely to be susceptible to suggestion with self-hypnosis and you do, obviously, trust yourself. Do you agree?'

He nodded, lacking the energy to formulate words.

'OK. Let's get you to your room.'

Eve and Arthur helped him back to room and he lay down on the bed, closing his eyes and putting his arm across his face. Eve sat on the edge of the bed again and placed a sympathetic hand on his shoulder.

'It was tough today.'

He nodded, in agreement.

'It's going to get tougher.'

He nodded again.

'Listen, about your Mind Palace, you must not go there without supervision.'

He made no response.

'I don't want you going there on your own, OK?'

He gave a small nod.

'It's not a safe place for you, at the moment.'

Sherlock nodded again. He just wanted to sleep. He could not remember feeling so tired in his life.

'Ok, I'm going to leave you to rest now. If you need anything, just ask and someone will see to it.' She patted his arm and walked towards the door, which was opened from the outside.

He rolled over and pulled the duvet on top of him. He was unconscious before the door closed behind her.

ooOoo


	6. Chapter 6

**Disclaimer – I don't own the characters. They belong to ACD, MG and SM and the BBC. No one pays me to do this, I do it for love.**

**Chapter Five**

Molly was at her desk, catching up on some tedious paperwork that she had been putting off all week. But today was Friday and there was no escaping it now. When her mobile rang, her heart jumped inside her chest, as she immediately thought it would be news of Sherlock – but it was John Watson's ring tone, the March of the Coldstream Guards.

'Hi, John,' she answered.

'Molly, how do you fancy doing a post mortem?' John asked, sounding urgent and a little breathless.

'Well, I can think of things I'd rather do in my spare time,' she replied.

'God, Moll, you're even starting to talk like him,' John joked. 'I'm just on my way to the Coroner's Office with a chit from the Met to request a second PM on our diminutive friend and I've asked that you do it, as an expert witness, sort of thing.'

'So, I'm a Consulting Pathologist now, am I?' she retorted.

'Why not? Are you in?'

'In principal, yes, but when will I be doing this PM and where?'

'Westminster Public Mortuary is where and tomorrow is when,' he explained.

'OK...that means I will need to ask Marie if she could have William. But that's OK, I can sort that. Yes, I can do it. Get it authorised and I'm on board,' she replied. Ringing off from John, she dialled Marie's number, who answered on the third ring.

'I am so sorry, Molly. I have plans for this weekend. Any other time, I would be more than happy but I have arranged something already. So sorry,' Marie apologised.

'No, don't be sorry, Marie. It is very short notice. I understand completely. See you later.' Molly rang off and thought for a minute or two, then dialled another number.

'Molly, how can I help you?' said the voice at the other end of the line.

'Mycroft, I have a favour to ask.'

'I will be more than happy to oblige you if it is in my power to do so,' Mycroft replied.

'I was wondering if you could have William for the weekend?' she asked. There was a protracted pause at the other end then Mycroft answered with a slight tremble in his voice,

'I would be absolutely delighted to have William for the weekend. I am honoured that you would ask such a thing.'

Molly had to smile. Mycroft's colleagues would be stunned to see what a huge softy he was where William was concerned. It was as though he had an alter ego which only emerged when William was around – a bit like Superman but without the red underpants.

'When would you like me to collect him?' he asked, his voice more steady now.

'Would this evening be alright?' she asked. That would be fine, Mycroft confirmed and, after discussing the finer details, they both rang off. Molly texted John.

'William's sorted. When do we start?' then she got back to work. She had a lot to do, in a relatively short time.

ooOoo

When Molly rang Mycroft, he had just come off the phone, having had a slightly disturbing conversation with Eve Matthews. She had called to give him an update on her first formal session with Sherlock.

'I was quite rough on him,' she explained. 'I pushed him hard but then pulled back at the end. I didn't want to unbalance him or precipitate an adverse reaction. There is something not right about what he is telling me – not just what he can't remember. He is lying but I don't know if he knows that. He has set up quite a barrier round the truth so there are multiple layers of defence to get through but he is motivated to do this so at least he is co-operating. If it were not for that, I don't think we would crack this in a month of Sundays.'

'Yes,' agreed Mycroft, 'my brother can be unremittingly stubborn.'

'There is just one thing,' she added. He listened, with renewed interest.

'Last night, he talked in his sleep.'

'What did he say?'

'He said, 'Don't come in here. Get away. Run'; and 'You. It can't be. Not you.''

Mycroft's brow furrowed in perplexity.

'What could that refer to?' he wondered, aloud.

'Not sure' she replied, 'but he said it in Portuguese.'

He had thanked her for the information and rung off but then sat, rubbing his temples, deep in thought, for several minutes.

ooOoo

By the time Mycroft arrived at Molly's flat to collect William, the little boy was in a state of extreme excitement. He had been to Mycroft's home many times but he had never been to stay over and his mum had always been there, too, so this was a double adventure. Molly had packed his overnight bag – a new bag, not the same bag she had packed the day Bernadette Jamieson came to call; that bag had gone straight in the bin, not least because, using it as a sleeping bag, William had had a couple of accidents in it so it was no longer usable. Mycroft was clearly as excited as William but trying a lot harder to hide it. Molly fished the car seat out of the hall cupboard, to fit in the limousine. She gave William a big hug and tried not to feel separation anxiety as she waved them off.

She had not had an evening alone since William was born and it felt really strange. She sat on the sofa and wondered what she would do with herself but she need not have worried. Her phone rang and it was John, calling to bring her up to speed with his day's investigations. As soon as he heard she was on her own, he invited her to spend the evening with him and Mary.

'Why don't you stay over, then we can all get drunk,' he suggested.

Molly packed an over-night case, locked up the flat and caught a cab to John and Mary's. When she arrived, Mary was cooking. It smelt delicious. John greeted her with a hug and put a glass of Rioja into her hand. They sat at the kitchen table, whilst John told her what he had found out about the case. He explained about the sketchy Post Mortem report and the absence of what were, in his opinion, essential tests. The Coroner, having read the report, was more than willing to sanction a second PM and agreeable to Molly performing it. John and Molly discussed what they hoped to achieve with the second PM, then Molly passed on to the others what Mycroft had told her about Sherlock's 'break through', and then they all spent the rest of the evening chatting generally and carefully avoiding mentioning anything to do with Sherlock.

In the spare room that night, however, Molly hugged a pillow and wondered how Sherlock was coping with the process of unlocking his hidden memories. Having someone rummage around in his mind was probably his worst nightmare. He was such a private person but also prized his cognitive ability above all his many other attributes. She knew he would never have agreed to this but for the effect his behaviour was having on her and William. Whenever she thought about what those secret memories might reveal, she heart froze inside her chest. It must be something truly terrible for him to have suppressed it so emphatically.

Had it not been for the case of the Decomposing Dwarf coming up, would these memories have ever emerged or would they have stayed hidden for the rest of his life? There was no point speculating on what might have been. This was how it was and they just had to deal with it. And if she and John could solve the case, Sherlock would never have to think about it again. She owed him that much, at least.

ooOoo

Mycroft and his staff were thoroughly enjoying William's company. The housekeeper had aired the Nursery suite and lit a fire in the nanny's sitting room. She had made up the beds in the two bedrooms. The Nursery suite consisted of a large playroom, two bedrooms – one for the nanny and one for the children – each with their own bathroom, a small fitted kitchen for the preparation of snacks and light meals and a sitting room, for the nanny. There was a small TV in there, which looked positively ancient but, with the aid of a digibox, could receive digital channels.

Mycroft had not been in the Nursery for years. He was amazed at how small everything looked, now that he was a grown man. It brought many memories flooding back, some good, some not so. He had decided to sleep in the nanny's room, as the Nursery was in the very top of the house and one floor up from his own bedroom, so rather remote. If William were to wake in the night, he wanted to be able to hear him. So Andrew, the butler cum valet, had transferred Mycroft's sleeping things and his toiletries to the Nursery suite, so everything was ready when he arrived with William in the evening.

Supper was served, by the cook, in the kitchen, rather than in the formal dining room, which was where Mycroft usually took his meals. William and Mycroft had chattered cheerfully throughout the meal, mostly about insects, which were something of an obsession with the little boy – he could not talk enough about them. After supper, Mycroft had taken his nephew for his bath, up in the Nursery bathroom, where he and Sherlock had taken their baths, as children. The staff all agreed amongst themselves that having a child in the house brought it to life. It felt warmer, friendlier and cosier. They hoped William would come to stay often.

After his bath, Mycroft put William to bed in his own old bedroom and read him one of the stories that Molly had packed in his bag – an old favourite called 'Whistle for Willy'. He noted that 'The Gruffalo' and 'The Gruffalo's Child' were also in the bag. These were new ones on him but he trusted William's taste in literature and looked forward to reading them on another occasion. Story over, it was time to say goodnight. Mycroft noted that Molly had packed Sherlock's framed photograph in the bag – the one that William had said goodnight to every night, practically since he was born, up to when the real thing returned. He took it out of the bag and stood it on the bedside table, where William would be able to see it, in the glow from the night light.

Having settled William for the night, he went into the small sitting room and sat in front of the fire, nursing a glass of Lagavulin, his favourite single malt from the island of Islay, and pondered on the mystery of Sherlock's lost memory. For a man who prided himself on his powers of recall, to lose a whole three weeks' worth of memory was a major event and the added complication of the Portuguese phrases made it still more intriguing. Had this subject been anyone other than his brother, this would have been a fascinating case but he could not avoid being subjective. This was his own flesh and blood.

The phrases in Portuguese were not a complete surprise. His brother had always had a facility with languages. He soaked them up like a sponge. He would only need to be in a country for a couple of days and he would be able to chat like a native but, once he left the environment, he would forget the language just as quickly – deleted from his hard drive. But this was evidence to suggest that he had been to Brazil and for at least a couple of days. What had happened during that time remained to be discovered.

ooOoo

When John and Molly arrived at the mortuary in Westminster, they were seriously impressed with the facilities they found there. The state of the art forensic mortuary was a sight to behold, with its huge capacity for body storage, giving it the potential to deal with mass fatalities in incidents such as a major disaster or a terrorist attack. It had a bio-hazard post mortem room and a CCTV viewing gallery, enabling interested parties to watch post mortems being performed without the risk of DNA or fabric transfer contamination. The facility was exclusively for the PM examination of suspicious deaths, which their dwarf certainly was.

Molly was rather flattered to find that the body had already been prepped for her and the tissue samples, taken at the previous PM, put out for her to examine. The staff were extremely welcoming and helpful. She felt like a bit of a fraud, as they seemed to think she was someone special. John just told her to bluff it out, as this was exactly what Sherlock would have done. John went up to the gallery to watch. There was an intercom link so that they could talk to one another during the process. The degree of decomposition made the body quite unpleasant to look at but the fact that it had been stored at low temperature – and that the PM room was also very cool – meant that the smell was not too bad, nothing Molly could not cope with, anyway. She scrubbed and gowned up and then set to work.

ooOoo

Sherlock had barely finished breakfast, which consisted of a strong black coffee and a large glass of cranberry and raspberry juice, when the door opened and Eve and Arthur came in. He looked at them, enquiringly, and Eve explained the change of venue for the session.

'I thought you would be more comfortable in your own room. You can lie down, if you wish.'

Sherlock agreed that this was probably more conducive to concentration than sitting in the chair in the room downstairs. He poured a large glass of water from a jug on the table and placed it next to the bed. He had felt quite dehydrated after yesterday's session so he thought he would pre-empt this today. He was feeling slightly self-conscious about entering his Mind Palace with other people present. He had never done that before. It had always been a private experience. He was also apprehensive of being guided through the Palace by another person. He did not want them going into places only he knew about. He thought he had found the solution. He just hoped it worked.

Arthur sat on a straight backed chair, by the table and Eve sat on the sofa. They waited for Sherlock to make the next move. He stood by the window, looking out at the park land, for quite a few minutes then walked over and lay on the bed, closing his eyes. He pictured himself to be in a long, broad corridor, with doors on either side. The doors were all closed and each had a sign attached which read 'Private'. He had no intension of going into any of those rooms. He was walking down the corridor. He heard Eve Matthews say,

'Where did you meet the representative in Paramaribo?'

Immediately, the corridor opened up into a large, airy room in the Marriott Hotel, overlooking the estuary of the river Suriname. In the room were the two men he had met with, to expedite his meeting with the head of their organisation, and a body guard who stood with his back to the door, looking menacing and somewhat stereotypical, in dark glasses. He could hear the conversation, them asking probing questions, to test his authenticity, and him giving the carefully rehearsed answers from his complex and detailed back story, but when he tried to describe the scene, his concentration was broken and the image vanished. He opened his eyes and sat up.

'I don't think this is going to work,' he said. 'I don't usually speak to anyone when I'm doing this. It's just in my head.'

Eve thought about this conundrum for a moment or two and then suggested,

'What if we gave you a mild sedative, just to relax you enough so that you could talk without it distracting you?'

'How mild?' he asked.

'Minimal. I was thinking Benzodiazepine. In a low dosage, it should just take the edge of any social anxiety you may be feeling about letting us into you Mind Palace.'

'Highly addictive, though,' he countered.

'Only if taken for prolonged periods of time. This will be a one off, most likely. Once you've done this with an audience, it should not be so hard next time.'

After some consideration, he agreed. Eve nodded to Arthur, who left the room, to go and collect the medication.

While he was gone, Sherlock took the opportunity to use the bathroom. Whilst washing his hands, he looked at his reflection in the bathroom mirror and did not like what he saw. He looked pale, even more so than usual, and he had black shadows under his eyes. A month of broken sleep had taken its toll and the stress of these encounters was not helping either.

He was not particularly happy about the use of medication but he wanted this over with as soon as possible, so he had agreed. He came out of the bathroom just as Arthur returned with two tables in a cardboard dispensing cup. He looked at them, momentarily, then threw them to the back of his throat and swallowed them down with a large swig of water. He lay back on the bed and waited for them to take effect.

ooOoo

Molly and John sat in a coffee shop, just around the corner from the Public Mortuary. The examination had taken a couple of hours and Molly had looked at the samples already taken and ordered some of the tests to be done again with fresh samples. She had also taken DNA, organ tissue and blood samples from the corpse, and a lab assistant had bagged and labelled all of them, filling out the appropriate forms to authorise the various tests each sample was to undergo. She ordered the new tests – DNA, genetic analysis and tox screen – to be marked 'Urgent' and was assured they would be given priority status. When she had finished with the body, the lab assistant told her that he would take care of the clean-up and return the body and samples to storage. So she only had to clean herself up and change back into her street clothes.

'So how soon will we have the test results?' John asked, sipping his cappuccino.

'The actual DNA test only takes minutes but it depends how quickly it gets written up and then passed on. They are used to getting results out fast, there, so we might even have it within the hour,' Molly speculated. 'The genetic analysis takes longer, as they have to look at individual chromosomes but they know they are looking for some form of dwarfism, so they know which chromosomes are most likely to be affected. That narrows it down a bit. The tox screen will take a while unless they get lucky and strike gold straight away but I would say twenty-four hours tops.'

As they finished their coffees, the email alert on John's phone sounded. Opening up his account, he smiled.

'Bingo!' he declared. The DNA report was in. 'Let's get back to the Yard and run this through the Met's database, see if we get any kind of a match.'

ooOoo


	7. Chapter 7

**Disclaimer – I don't own the characters. They belong to ACD, MG and SM and the BBC. No one pays me to do this, I do it for love.**

**Chapter Six**

Sherlock was standing in his Mind Palace, in the corridor with all the closed doors, looking towards the bright sun light coming from the hotel room, overlooking the beach front of Paramaribo, capital of Suriname. He felt quite relaxed this time and not remotely self-conscious of being watched. He knew they could not see what he could see. They were dependant on what he told them and he did not have to tell them everything.

'Tell me what's happening,' Eve asked.

'I'm being vetted. They are asking me the same questions I was asked in Caracas and in Georgetown, only, every now and then, they ask something new, something random, designed to trip me up. They have copies of all the questions and my answers from the previous two meetings so they can see if I make a mistake. They are asking me about the organisation I represent and about myself. They've already investigated my back story, had my passport verified, done all the back ground checks but they are very cautious, very suspicious. This is a big deal, worth millions of dollars, so they want it badly but they don't want to be caught out.' He paused.

'What's happening now?'

'They seem convinced. They are getting ready to leave. They tell me I will be hearing from them in the next couple of days, when they have decided whether to pass me on down the line or not. They are leaving.'

'What are you doing now?'

'It's evening time and I'm walking up the beach front to a café bar. I'm scheduled to meet my contact there. I sit at an outside table and order a drink. I wait until the meeting time but he doesn't arrive. I wait another two hours but he still doesn't come so I go back to the hotel. I will do the same thing tomorrow.'

'What is happening now?'

'I'm in my hotel room. I think the contact's cover has been blown and, if that is the case, I am at risk of being blown, too. I want to let someone know where I am but I can't use my phone to make contact in case they are monitoring my calls – which I suspect they are. I decide to do some 'net surfing and hope that someone is looking for my GPS signal. I Google some local amenities, to keep up my cover as a visiting business man. I look at some clean brothels that a Western business man would use. I play some online poker, just to pass the time and to keep my phone active, to make it more likely they will find me, if anyone knows to even look.'

'Does anyone contact you?'

'No. I go to bed. I think that I might go for a walk in the morning and call in the code to abort the mission.'

'Is that what you do?'

'No. The next morning, the representatives of the cartel come for me, tell me to pack. We are leaving for Rio de Janeiro, straight away. I pack my things, check out of the hotel and we go to the airport. There's a private jet waiting. We board the jet and fly to Rio. When we land there, they take me to a hotel in the centre of Rio – the Pestana Rio. They take me to a room and leave me, saying someone will be in touch. They leave a man outside my room. They say he's my body guard but he is my jailer.'

'What do you do then?'

'I'm trying to think of ways to escape but I'm on the fourteenth floor, so jumping out of the window is not an option. There is a balcony but it has barriers on either side. I might be able to get over them but need to wait until it's dark. I decide to go down to the hotel bar. I might be able to take advantage of a diversion and get away. My minder comes down with me. He's not letting me out of his sight. I have something to eat and go back to my room, to wait until it goes dark.'

'What happens next?'

'They send for me. My minder knocks on my door and says we are leaving. He takes me down to a car and we start to drive to the meet. I assume that I will be meeting the top man and there is every chance that, if he sees me, he will recognise me. All Moriarty's lieutenants probably know what I look like so there is no way I can meet him. My cover will be blown completely and I'll be killed.'

'So what do you do?'

'I throw up.'

'You what?'

'I throw up. I used to do this when I was a kid, if I wanted to get out of doing something, I could make myself throw up. I just have to think about when I got food poisoning from eating bad prawns and I can make myself throw up. So that's what I do. I tell my minder I'm feeling nauseous, from the food I ate in the restaurant, and ask him to tell the driver to stop. He says we will be there soon and to hold on, so I puke up all over him.'

'What happens next?'

'He freaks out and yells to the driver to stop. The driver stops, gets out of the car and comes to open my door. I kick the door open, knocking him out of the way, jump out of the car and run.'

'Where do you run to?'

'Into the back streets. I have to dump my phone so they can't use it to track me so I throw it into the back of a pickup truck that is driving past. Then I just keep running. It's like a maze. As I'm running, I keep turning left and right, randomly, until I come to some kind of slum area. I crawl into a space under a fire escape, where there is a load of junk that people have dumped there, furniture and allsorts. Then I just hide. I'm waiting for it to go dark.'

'What happens next?'

The images up to this point had been crystal clear, like walking through a film set; substantial and solid. But, suddenly, the scene was racing away from him and he was back in the corridor, with the closed doors.

'What is happening now?' Eve prompted him again.

He stood in the corridor, looking down towards where the light had been coming from earlier but now it was just a blank wall.

'It won't let me in' he said, feeling panic begin to rise, as it had on the first day, when he thought of Brazil.

'OK, just relax, breathe slowly. Try to go in again.'

He turned around in the corridor, looking at the closed doors, wondering whether he should try to go through one of them. Then he saw, from the corner of his eye, one of the doors begin to open. He turned towards it, just as it opened wide enough to see inside, and he saw a figure standing in the doorway. He looked at the person's face and his heart leaped in his chest.

'You! It can't be! Not you!' he shouted, then sat up and projectile vomited right across the room.

Arthur jumped to his feet and rushed across to the bed as Eve jumped up from the sofa to avoid the spray of vomit. Sherlock rolled off the bed and, landing on his hands and knees on the carpet, proceeded to heave the contents of his stomach onto the floor. Even after he had emptied out his breakfast, he continued to dry heave for some time, as Arthur knelt beside him, with a sympathetic hand between his shoulder blades. Eve went into the bathroom and came back with a hand towel which, as Sherlock sat back on his heels, she handed to him to wipe his face. Then she looked at one of the cameras and said,

'Send a clean-up team.'

Arthur assisted Sherlock back onto the bed, where he sat, trembling from the shock of the sudden attack of vomiting. Arthur pulled the duvet up over his shoulders and wrapped it around him, then put the glass of water, he had poured earlier, into his hand.

'Just sip it,' Arthur advised.

Having taken a few cautious sips of the water, Sherlock put the glass down with a shaking hand.

'Before you ask, I did not do that on purpose,' he croaked, his throat raw from the residue of the stomach acid.

'Who where you talking to?' Eve asked.

'I don't remember,' he replied, screwing up his eyes and moving his head, slowly, from side to side, in an effort to clear the fuzziness.

'Well, I don't think we can do any more for now. We need to get you cleaned up and move you to another room. You've probably puked up whatever medication was still in your stomach, anyway.'

He agreed he most likely had.

'You did really well today,' she went on. 'You've uncovered a lot more than I thought you would in just your second session but we have obviously come to the really dangerous stuff now, which is why your Mind Palace shut you out. It's still trying to protect you.' She got up to leave, as the clean-up crew arrived in the room.

'Just one question, though?' she paused to say.

He looked up at her.

'Did you know you were speaking Portuguese just now?'

He was dumb-struck. He'd had no idea.

ooOoo

John and Molly were sitting in Greg Lestrade's office, enjoying a mug of Sally Donovan's builder's tea. She was famed, throughout the Met, for the strength of her tea. It was rumoured that, if you left a spoon in it, it would dissolve in minutes. Sally had heard all the jokes, many times over and just let them roll of her like water from a duck's back. One of Greg's computer wizards was running the dwarf's DNA result through the National DNA Database and they were all chatting amiably.

'We've got a match,' said the young PC. Everyone stopped talking at once and turned to stare at him.

'It's not an exact match but it is definitely a close relative. Possibly a father or a brother.' He turned the screen so that everyone could see.

'Who is it,' asked John, barely able to contain his excitement.

'It's a lifer. Gilbert Eastridge, doing a twenty year stretch at the Scrubs for murder,' the PC explained.

'Would we be able to go and talk to him?' Molly asked.

'We can ask,' Lestrade replied.

ooOoo

Mycroft and William clumped into the kitchen in their wellington boots. Mycroft used the boot jack to deftly remove his and showed William how to do the same, then they proceeded to the kitchen table, in stocking feet, where the cook was serving a pot of fresh tea and a plate of toasted teacakes, liberally spread with butter. William declined the tea in favour of a glass of milk, but Mycroft embraced the English tradition of Afternoon Tea, whole-heartedly.

They had spent the best part of the day tramping round the estate, introducing William to some of the activities that went on in rural England. This had included a couple of hours with the game keeper, bouncing over the fields in his land rover, refilling the pheasant feeders and checking the poults in the pheasant nets. The younger birds would be kept in the nets until they had grown their flight feathers, and then be released into the park to live short but happy lives before they were dispatched, in one of the several game bird shoots that the estate hosted each year. It was a big part of the local economy, providing an additional income for the local residents, who acted as beaters for the shoots and pursued their normal jobs at other times.

William was delighted to meet the gamekeeper's dogs – two black labs and two Springer spaniels. The labs were gentle and calm, licking William's face and flashing their teeth in panting smiles. The spaniels were completely hyperactive, wiggling and weaving around the humans and knocking William over, in their enthusiastic greeting rituals. The game keeper showed William how to raise his hand and say 'Sit' in a very forceful way, which the labs obeyed instantly and the spaniels thought about and then decided to ignore.

From the pheasant nets, they went to one of the copses, where two foresters were coppicing a stand of willow, down by the river. William stood by the brazier, where they were burning the brush, warming his hands whilst Mycroft talked to the men about the effect of the current economic climate on the timber industry. The smell of wood smoke pervaded the air and infused William's hair and clothing. His cheeks glowed from the heat of the fire and his eyes sparkled with delight at everything he had experienced that day. As the sun moved to the west and the light began to fade, he and Mycroft turned toward home and the promise of Afternoon Tea.

ooOoo

Sherlock was dreaming – not of hotel rooms in South American capitals or poppy farmer cartels or strange faces in his Mind Palace, but of Molly Hooper. He was dreaming of the first time they lay together, that last night before he went away, when she had awoken feelings within him that he thought he had under tight control. But she had broken down those barriers, not with force and violence but with persistence and fortitude. Sweet, kind, gentle, strong, courageous Molly Hooper; in his dream, he saw the fierce look in her eyes, as she pushed him back on the bed and straddled him, challenging him to reject her; as she took his hands in hers and placed them on her breasts. He could taste her, smell her, feel the texture of her skin, her hair. He wanted her, he needed her, more than he had wanted or needed anything in his entire life.

Then, in the dream, suddenly she was gone – snatched away by unseen forces – leaving a space of such vast emptiness that whole universes could be lost within it. He felt an intense, visceral pain and a loud howl of loneliness and longing was torn from him. It woke him up. He sat up, in the strange bed, as the last remnants of the dream burst like bubbles of ephemera, and his face was wet with tears. He rubbed them away on the sleeve of his shirt, whilst trying to hold on to that image of her face, with those burning eyes.

He rolled off the bed and went into the bathroom to splash cold water on his face, then went and stood by one of the windows, looking out at his new view of the park and woodland of the estate. He had showered and changed into clean clothes but he could still feel the vomit burn in the back of his throat. He stood for some time with his hands in his trouser pockets, then, turning to look up at one of the cameras, he said,

'I want to go outside.'

He waited by the window until he heard the door open. It was Arthur, the nurse, dressed in fatigues and a camouflage jacket.

'You can go for a walk in the grounds, but I have to come with you, I'm afraid,' he grinned, apologetically.

Sherlock nodded and gave that half smile of resignation and acquiescence. He put on his shoes, jacket, coat and scarf and the two men left the room and made their way through the house to the front door. It felt good to be outside in the fresh air. He breathed in, deeply, and smelt the familiar scent of grass and trees and open spaces. He turned to the left and began to walk along the front of the house, down the side, and around the back, striking out towards the out-buildings and past the old stable block, which now served as a garage to house the staff cars, including the sleek, black limousine that had brought him and Eve to this place, just two days ago. That must have been put at Eve's disposal, for the duration of his stay here.

As they walked, he chatted easily with Arthur, who was a very easy person to talk to, about how much this reminded him of his childhood. He explained how he had grown up on his family's estate in Hertfordshire and Arthur joked about how he had grown up on a council estate in Lancashire and both men had laughed at that. Their walk took them round behind the stable block and out across the open parkland towards a stand of trees, following a random path, as the whim took Sherlock. As they entered the stand of trees, Sherlock turned, suddenly, toward Arthur, grasped him by the collar of his jacket and head butted him, on the bridge of his nose. Taken completely by surprise, Arthur went down like a felled ox.

Speed was of the essence. Sherlock shrugged out of his coat. He stripped Arthur of his jacket and trousers and put them on over his suit. Arthur was a much bigger built man than him, so the clothes fitted over his own. He rolled Arthur in his black coat, checked that he had his pager clipped to his shirt – they would find him by tracing that – but took his mobile phone. Taking Arthur's beret, he pushed his own hair behind his ears and pulled the hat on at a rakish angle.

On their walk, he had been clocking the surveillance cameras and he thought he had identified a blind corridor between the trees and the back of the stable block. He ran down that corridor and, on reaching the back wall of the stables, he skirted around the building, hugging the wall. As he came to the open front of the block, he slipped into the building and crouched down beside the limousine. He tried the driver's side door. It was unlocked. Of course it was! This was a secure area. Why would it need to be locked? He slid into the driver's seat and reached under the dash board. These older cars were so easy to hot wire, unlike their more modern computerised counterparts, and he had the advantage of having had a diplomat for a father so he'd had an extended period of time – several years, in fact – to familiarise himself with the wiring system of these staff cars. He selected two wires, pulled them both loose and twisted their ends together. The engine sprang to life.

He needed to act faster now. It had been several minutes since they had entered the wood. The watchers would be expecting them to exit at the other side any time now. Even as he put the car in gear and released the hand brake, he scanned the dashboard and located the device that operated the barrier at the end of the drive. There were two buttons on the device. One had the icon of a barrier, the other the icon of a stump. He pulled the car out of the garage and cruised around the house, across the forecourt and onto the drive. It was important not to draw attention to himself. He might not yet have been missed.

Moving down the curved drive, he gradually increased his speed. The check point came into view. It all looked quiet at the moment but he knew this could change at any time. As he approached, he pressed the button to raise the barrier. It started to rise but then he noticed the stumps begin to rise out of the ground, too, and two men emerged from the gate house, carrying automatic rifles. Sherlock was not concerned about the soldiers. He was in an armoured car with bullet proof windows. He increased his speed, pressed the button to lower the stumps and drove straight at the men. The stumps began to sink back into the ground, the men dived out of the way and the car shot through the check point and turned onto the road, accelerating away.

Sherlock had no idea where he was going. He did not know what he had run from or what he was running to. He did not have a plan. He just knew he had to get away. He drove along the road, recalling various land marks from the journey in, two day before. He had to get rid of the car. It was probably fitted with a tracker. It had served its purpose in getting him out of the complex. Seeing a convenient layby, he pulled in, tugged the two wires apart to stop the engine, got out of the car and slammed the door. He then turned and dove into the woodland that bounded the road, disappearing instantly, in his camouflage clothing.

ooOoo

The two soldiers at the check point picked themselves up off the ground and one went into the gate house to call the main house but, even as he did this, a second car was racing down the drive way, toward them. It screeched to a halt and the passenger jumped out, stamping his foot in frustration. Dr Hemmings knew he had made a serious error of judgement. He just knew he should have checked with Eve Matthews before he sanctioned the walk in the park but it had seemed such an innocent request and the complex was so secure. He knew he was going to have to eat a lot of humble pie in order to keep his job.

ooOoo

The phone in the front hall of the Holmes' residence rang, shrilly. It was answered by Andrew and transferred to the kitchen, where the cook handed the receiver to Mycroft. He announced himself. From the tone of Eve Matthews' voice, he knew, instantly, that there was something wrong.

'Mycroft,' she stated, simply, 'he's gone.'

ooOoo


	8. Chapter 8

**Disclaimer – I don't own the characters. They belong to ACD, MG and SM and the BBC. No one pays me to do this, I do it for love.**

**Chapter Seven**

Sherlock moved through the trees, going deeper into the heart of the wood. He needed to do a number of things but the first priority was to avoid capture. They would expect him to continue to move away from the complex, so he turned back in the direction of St Hugh's, moving parallel to the road. He knew they had dogs at the facility, as he had heard them barking at night, but he suspected they were guard dogs rather than trackers. However, they would have access to trackers, so he needed to mask his scent. He had seen something on the road, about a mile back, that would do that job. He moved cautiously through the undergrowth, listening for sounds of pursuit. He could hear traffic on the road but he had no idea whether it was random cars or vehicles from St, Hugh's.

As he approached the spot on the road that he was looking for, he moved stealthily towards the highway. Spotting a large, thick tree trunk, on the edge of the plantation, he moved toward it and, lying on the ground, crawled right to the verge and looked up and down the road. He saw what he was looking for, about ten yards back along the route, and crawled on his belly through the undergrowth until he was alongside it. Looking up and down the road again, wary of approaching traffic, he reached one arm into the road, grabbed the dead badger and pulled it to him. He rolled over, onto his back, hidden in the vegetation, with the badger on his chest. Pulling the drawer string from its channel, at the waist of his camouflage jacket, he tied it round the neck of the dead badger. Crawling deeper into the wood, he came upon a badger track, stood up and began to walk at a brisk pace, back toward St. Hugh's, dragging the badger carcass behind him, to mask his own scent from any dogs being used to track him.

His next priority was transport. He needed to put distance between himself and his last known position – which was the layby where he had abandoned the car. In the countryside, he knew from experience, people have a different attitude to security. Farmers and other countryside workers, especially when more than one person needs access to the same vehicle, have a tendency to leave things like vehicle keys in predictable places, the most common being just inside the exhaust pipe. Under the cover of darkness, he hoped to find such a vehicle and commandeer it for his own use.

Farmers may be a little lax about vehicle security but farms usually had dogs that, at least, would raise the alarm and, at worst, could attack him, so farms were a bad bet. Game keepers, on the other hand, kept more passive dogs, who were accustomed to being around strange people, at shoots, so less likely to either bark or attack. He had spotted a game keeper at work in the parkland at St Hugh's, driving an ancient land rover. That would be ideal. It was with the intention of taking this vehicle that he was returning to the scene of his dramatic escape.

ooOoo

Mycroft asked the cook to keep an eye on William and went to his study to take this call from Eve Matthews. Once inside, with the door firmly closed, he lifted the extension receiver and spoke.

'Tell me what happened.'

Eve gave a brief account of the day's events, including the session, the sudden attack of nausea and the daring escape.

'What are you doing to find him?' Mycroft asked, impatiently, feeling annoyed, both at Sherlock, for absconding, and with the staff at St. Hugh's, for making it so easy for him to do so.

Eve had to admit that they were singularly unprepared for a runaway and that, although the duty doctor followed Sherlock until he found the abandoned car, it took more than an hour to mobilise a proper search party and even longer to gain access to a tracker dog. She described how the dog had followed Sherlock's trail for about a mile, from the car, back toward the facility but had lost the scent near the road, leading to the assumption that he had been picked up by a passing motorist. Mycroft agreed that this was possible but told them not to give up searching the immediate area. He knew his brother's penchant for laying false trails and did not want to dismiss the possibility that this was just that, designed to – quite literally – put them off the scent.

'Who have you got looking?' Mycroft asked. Eve described the makeup of the search party. Mycroft snorted with derision.

'I'll send you someone who knows what they're doing,' he snapped and hung up the phone.

Taking out his mobile, he pressed a speed dial number. When the other party answered, he explained the situation succinctly and the person at the other end acknowledged this and rang off. He then sat, mulling over his next action for several minutes and then, cursing under his breath, he dialled Mrs Hudson's number. She answered straight away.

'My dear lady, we have a crisis and I need you to come and take care of William, here in Hertfordshire, while I deal with it,' he explained. She agreed to come at once and he said he would send a car.

'Mrs Hudson, please don't contact Molly or John Watson. I haven't apprised them of the situation yet. I need to speak to them in person.'

He rang off, then called his chauffeur and asked him to go and collect Mrs Hudson from Baker Street.

ooOoo

The black cab pulled up outside the iconic façade of Wormwood Scrubs and Molly jumped out as John paid the fare and followed her up to the famous front door. She pressed a bell by the side of the pedestrian door, set into the larger vehicle gate. After a short wait, the door was opened by a uniformed officer and he admitted them. They were then accompanied through a series of check points and John produced the permit Greg Lestrade had obtained, sanctioning this visit. They were subjected to a search, passed through a metal detection arch and their personal effects were taken and placed in a locker, for safe keeping, during the visit. Eventually, they were admitted to an interview room and invited to sit on chairs in front of a metal table.

A few moments later, a door on the other side of the room opened and an inmate was brought in by a warder and shown to a chair on the other side of the table. The warder then stood back against the wall and folded his arms. John introduced them as Dr John Watson and Dr Molly Hooper then, as they had planned in the cab on the way there, Molly took over.

'Mr Eastridge, do you have a brother or a son, perhaps, who suffers from a form of dwarfism?' she asked.

The man looked at her, rather surprised by the line of questioning. When he had been asked to accept the visit, he had no idea why these doctors wanted to speak to him but he had agreed out of curiosity.

'Well, as it 'appens, I do 'ave a son who's a dwarf, yeah,' he replied, at last.

'Could I ask you when you last saw your son, Mr Eastridge?' she continued.

'Oh, god, your askin' nah,' he said, rubbing his brow as he thought. 'Not for ten, eleven years, sumink like tha'. The missis, like, me an' 'er, we split up, after I got sent darn. Young Jamie, 'e were disabled, y'know, so 'e coul'n't come 'ere on his own an' she woul'n't bring 'im. So I coul'n't see 'im. Bu' he wrote le''ers, like an' I wrote le''ers back.'

'When did you last get a letter from Jamie?' she asked

'Las' week.'

Molly was rather thrown by this answer but, after a short pause, spoke again.

'I wonder if you would mind giving us your son's address,' she asked.

'Tha' would depend wha' you wanted it for. 'E ain't in no trouble, is 'e? I mean, 'e can't ge' out on 'is own, so 'e can't ge' up to much, can 'e?'

'No, Mr Eastridge, he's not in any trouble. We are just a bit concerned for his welfare so we would like to speak to him and make sure he is alright.'

'Oh, righ', well, in tha' case, yeah, I can give you 'is address. You got a bi' a paper?' John produced his note book and pencil from his top pocket and wrote down the address the man gave them.

'Thank you, Mr Eastridge, we are very grateful to you,' Molly said, as they stood to leave. They had been specifically instructed not to touch the prisoner so they did not shake hands, although it felt odd not to do so. They were let out of the room and taken back to the main gate, collecting their possessions on the way. Once outside, John spoke first.

'How could he have had a letter from someone who has been dead for more than two years?'

'That, John, is a very good question; a very, very good question,' Molly replied.

She looked at her watch. It was five thirty p.m.

'Can it wait until tomorrow, though? It's been a hell of a long day, already,' she pleaded.

'Oh, my god!' John crowed. 'Thank god you're normal, too! If Sherlock were here, he would just be getting his second wind.'

They walked to the main road and hailed a cab to take first Molly home and then John. As it turned into the crescent, Molly saw Mycroft's car parked outside her building.

'Oh, there's Mycroft. I wonder if there's something wrong with William,' she wondered, suddenly concerned. As the taxi pulled up, Mycroft stepped out of his car and came over to the cab.

'Ah, Molly. And you, too, John. How fortunate. I need to see you both,' he said, looking serious. John paid the cab and they all went into Molly's flat. Once inside the sitting room, Molly turned to Mycroft.

'Has something happened? To William or to Sherlock?' she demanded.

'William is absolutely fine. He's being looked after at my home by Mrs Hudson. Please, sit down, Molly. And you, John.' Molly sat down on the sofa and John sat next to her and took her hand. Mycroft sat in the arm chair.

'Sherlock has gone missing,' he began. Molly put her free hand up to her mouth and John put his arm around her shoulders.

'He knocked out his attendant, took his clothes, stole a car and escaped from the facility. He has not been seen or heard from since.'

'When did this happen?' asked John, sounding concerned but calm and practical, gathering data.

'At approximately two o'clock this afternoon. He'd had a session with Eve this morning which had gone extremely well, right up to the point where he was violently sick and was unable to continue. They cleaned him up and he slept until just after lunch time. He then asked if he could go for a walk in the grounds. He had not been outside since Thursday so they agreed to a supervised walk but they only sent one attendant – a male army nurse, who had been present at the sessions.'

'Sherlock took him to an isolated spot, outside of their surveillance grid and knocked him unconscious, took his fatigues and his phone, hotwired a staff car and drove out of the place before anyone even knew he was missing. The soldiers on the gate came out to challenge, but only because they had not been advised that a vehicle was leaving. He drove straight at them. They had to jump out of the way and he drove off. He then dumped the car, about five miles down the road and they think he hitched a ride in a passing vehicle. They had him tracked by a dog and his trail ends at the road.' Mycroft paused to allow them to digest this information.

Molly and John were both too shocked to say anything, initially, then John spoke.

'Why do they think he ran?'

'Eve suspects that he saw something that shocked him, while he was recalling a particular incident,' explained Mycroft.

'What does she think he saw' Molly asked.

Mycroft took a deep breath.

'On Thursday night, Sherlock talked in his sleep. He was being monitored around the clock so they had it on film. He said, 'Don't come in here. Get away. Run' and then 'You. It can't be. Not you.' But he said these phrases in Portuguese. From that, we deduce that he had been in Brazil. But to whom they refer, we cannot even guess. Then, today, just before he vomited - rather violently all over the place, apparently - he said the second phrase again and - again - in Portuguese. Eve thinks he saw the person he had been dreaming about. When she asked, he said he didn't remember but she is certain he was lying.'

'Just a minute,' Molly spoke up. 'I think I've heard him speak Portuguese, too.'

Both men looked at her.

'One night, a couple of weeks ago, he was really restless, kept waking me up, rolling around in bed. I almost went into the guest room but then he said something, I thought he might be speaking Spanish but it didn't sound quite right for Spanish but now you mention it, I think it was Portuguese. He said, 'Que idade tem?' or, at least, that's as close as I can get to the pronunciation. Then he said, 'Sou Ingles', something like that. After that, he settled down and slept soundly for the rest of the night. When I asked him the next day what he had been dreaming about, he couldn't remember. When I told him he had been muttering in Spanish, he just laughed and said he used to have a Spanish mistress so he was used to speaking Spanish in bed.'

John burst out laughing at that and Molly smiled, despite the graveness of the situation. Mycroft, however, failed to see the joke.

'I need to find out what those phrases mean. I wish I had his facility with languages. Father always hoped Sherlock would go into the diplomatic corp. With his linguistic ability, he would have been ideal. Instead, they had to settle for me, who can barely understand a French menu.'

John snorted.

'Don't even go there, Mycroft. If you could speak languages as well, we wouldn't even need a Foreign Office. We could just have you. Anyway, what are you doing to try to find him?'

'We have half the SAS out looking for him. They were a bit slow off the mark at St Hugh's. They didn't have any kind of search organised for nearly an hour. By that time, he was probably miles away.'

'But where could he be going?' Molly asked,

'I have no idea. I doubt he would come here or Baker Street or your flat, John. He would know that we would look there first.'

'Why did he run? And what is he running from?' Molly could not begin to fathom what had precipitated this incomprehensible behaviour.

ooOoo

Sherlock had located the game keeper's cottage, just as the sun was beginning to sink towards the west. The land rover was not parked outside the house, so the man must not be home yet. He crawled into a hedge bottom, where he was sheltered from the wind, and pulling his knees up to his chest, folded his arms and settled down to wait. He kept the dead badger beside him. If, when the gamekeeper returned, any of the dogs showed an interest in the hedge, he could push the badger out, to distract them and also to account for their attraction to that particular spot.

He dozed as he waited but was instantly awake when he heard the familiar sound of a land rover engine and the headlights strafed the house front, as the vehicle pulled into the drive way. The man switched off the engine, climbed out and his two dogs jumped out and followed him into the cottage, where the lights were now on and from which cooking smells were emanating.

Sherlock stayed motionless, in his hiding place, imagining the scene inside the cosy little house, as the man and his wife greeted one another and exchanged news of their day. This made him think of Molly and started the dull ache in his chest, again. What would Molly think when she found out what he had done, he wondered. And how could he ever look at William again in the same way, knowing what he now knew? Could Molly live with the knowledge? Could he even live with it himself? He put his forehead on his knees and hugged his thighs to his chest, as the unbearable pain of guilt, anguish and self-loathing surged through him. He could never go back. He could never look William in the eyes again and Molly would never again let him touch her, not once she knew.

He could barely contain the groan of despair that was trying to escape his chest. He had to bite down on it, for fear it would expose his hiding place. He clenched every muscle in his body and tried to clear his mind of all thought. He yearned for oblivion, desired it with every atom of his being. He huddled in his hedge bottom and waited for the right time to act.

It was about an hour later that he saw the sitting room light go on and heard the television start up. He gave it another half hour and then the kitchen light went out. The couple in the cottage would be watching TV. The time had come. He eased himself out of his hiding place and moved like a shadow across the narrow lane, into the drive way and up to the land rover. He tried the driver's side door – not locked. He looked in the ignition – no keys. The man had not gone to the back of the vehicle so he knew the keys were not in the exhaust but he was willing to bet they were in there somewhere. He eased himself into the driver's seat and looked around the cab, in the moon light, then reached up and lowered the sun visor – the keys dropped into his hand.

He adjusted the seat back a fraction, to allow for his long legs, put the key in the ignition, counted to three, in his head, then turned the key. The faithful old engine caught immediately. He put the gear box into reverse, swung out of the driveway, changed straight into first and pressed his foot almost to the floor. The land rover powered forward and, as he changed up through the gears, cruised round the bend. Once he was out of sight of the cottage, he switched on the lights, accelerated to sixty mph and disappeared into the night.

ooOoo


	9. Chapter 9

**Disclaimer – I don't own the characters. They belong to ACD, MG and SM and the BBC. No one pays me to do this, I do it for love.**

**Chapter Eight**

Molly carried a tea tray from the kitchen and put it on the coffee table, in front of the sofa, in her sitting room. Mycroft was in the guest bedroom, taking a phone call. John was on his phone, talking to Mary, explaining the situation. Molly lifted the lid of the tea pot and stirred the contents, then poured three cups, for herself and her two guests. Adding milk, she raised her cup to her lips and took a sip. How strange, she thought, that something as mundane as pouring a cup of tea could evoke such vivid memories.

She was reliving the night she came home from hospital, following the kidnapping incident. Sherlock had made a pot of tea and they had talked. He had asked her what she wanted from him and then he had told her what he wanted from her. It was more than she had ever imagined to be possible. That was the first time he admitted he had feelings for her. It was beyond her wildest dreams; it was like being touched by an angel – her angel, her heart's desire, her Sherlock Holmes.

The silent tears trickled down her cheeks and dripped onto her hand holding the cup and she didn't even bother to wipe them away. John's eye was caught by the movement, as more tears dripped from her chin. He told Mary he would call her back, put down his phone, took the cup from Molly, putting it back on the tray, and wrapped his arms around her, pulling her to his chest. She shook with sobs of despair and clung to him, wishing so much that it wasn't him holding her, yet grateful beyond words that he was there for her.

Mycroft, returning from the bedroom and happening upon this scene, sat down in the armchair, feeling helpless, frustrated, angry and determined. Molly pulled away from John, wiped her face on her sleeves and apologised for being such a wuss. Then she turned to Mycroft and asked him if there was any news.

'The wood that the road runs through has been searched, using the lay-by, where the car was abandoned, as Ground Zero and working outwards, in all directions. The SAS have a survival expert on their staff who found a trail of foot prints that ran from the car, through the wood for about a mile and then out to the edge of the road; and there is evidence that he crawled along the edge of the road for a short distance and then crawled back into the woods.'

'They found a badger trail, running through the wood, several badger trails, in fact, criss-crossing one another, but one looks as though something was dragged along it. They suspect this was him, dragging something to mask his scent. They think it was probably road kill. They began to follow the drag marks but the light was failing so they could not be sure he didn't branch off. The ground is quite hard so the drag marks are intermittent. They tried a dog but whatever he was dragging smelt a lot stronger than he did, so the dog was confused.'

'Well, we all know what that feels like,' John muttered.

Mycroft went on.

'They are fairly sure he was working his way back towards St Hugh's but the wood covers several hundred hectares so he could have branched off and be holed up somewhere or he could have kept going. He might even have picked up a ride from one of the roads that cut through the woodland. There is nothing much to be done on that front until morning. The SAS guy thinks he'll be able to pick up the trail in the daylight and follow it to where ever it goes.'

'Meanwhile, they have a helicopter in the air now, with a heat-seeking camera, scanning the woods in a spiral pattern, working out from the lay-by. If he's holed up, it will spot him – unless he's gone underground. The wood is full of badger sets, and some of the tunnels are wide enough to admit a man, especially a thin one like him. If he's down in one of those, the cameras will never pick him up. They have, however, spotted a lot of deer, several foxes and a courting couple, who were somewhat alarmed to find themselves surrounded by an SAS assault unit.'

'Bit of a passion killer, for sure,' John commented.

'Any way, I suggest we call it a night. Molly, I assume you will be coming back to Hertfordshire for the night.'

Molly thought for a moment then said,

'Actually, no, Mycroft, I won't. John and I have a lead in the dwarf case and I really want to follow it up tomorrow so I should stay in London. Anyway, I don't want William to see me upset and, the way I'm feeling just now, I couldn't guarantee that.'

'But you can't stay here on your own, Molly…' Mycroft began.

'No, she can come home with me,' John interjected, 'OK Moll?' Molly nodded, gratefully.

'Well, please allow me to give you both a lift to your home, John.'

ooOoo

Sherlock drove through the dark night. He knew that, once the searchers knew what he was driving, he would be a sitting duck for the road traffic cameras on all the major routes but he was hoping they would not know about the land rover yet. He was banking on it not being missed until the morning so he needed to cover as much ground as possible before the alarm was raised and they put two and two together. He estimated he had until about six in the morning. Once they knew what he was driving, they would be able to track him, using those cameras, so, at some point in the night, he would have to dump this vehicle and find another one that they couldn't track. He was beginning to formulate a plan. He drove cross-country towards Flitwick, sticking to back lanes and minor roads to avoid any road blocks they might have put in place. Once he picked up the M1, it would be north, north, north.

It took him nearly two hours to reach Watford Gap services because of the meandering nature of the back roads. He parked the Land Rover as close to the service building as possible, in the busiest part of the car park, where it would be least conspicuous, and next to a large camper-van which he hoped would shield him from the CCTV cameras, when he got out. Before abandoning the vehicle, he went through the glove box and the cab to see if there was anything he might find useful. He found a screw driver, a pair of thermal gloves, a torch and some loose change and pocketed them.

Money would be his biggest problem. He could not use his debit or credit cards, because they left an audit trail. He had just £50 in cash but he had things he could sell. He would have to be both frugal and inventive in his use of money. Having taken what he could from the land rover, he unrolled the hood of his stolen jacket, from under the collar, and pulled it up over the beret on his head. On leaving the vehicle, he locked it up and then put the keys inside the exhaust pipe. He hoped the game keeper would eventually get it back.

Using other vehicles as much as possible, to shield him from the CCTV cameras, he made his way towards the service building, hunching his shoulders and adopting a slouching gait to make it more difficult to identify him by his walk. Once inside the building, he made for the cafeteria, bought a coffee with the loose change from the car and chose a table in a busy part of the hall. He scanned the room, looking for a potential ride.

He spotted a group of tables in the far corner, where a number of men were seated, all conversing together. As he observed them, individuals would get up and leave, saying loud, enthusiastic goodbyes, and new men would arrive, giving equally rowdy greetings. He recognised them as lorry drivers, 'knights of the road', who clearly met each other frequently but irregularly at theses truck stop watering holes. Having identified his target group, he picked up his coffee and strolled over to them, effecting the upright posture of a military man. Adopting an Estuary accent, he addressed the group.

''Scuse me, mates, I was wonderin', any o' you geysers goin' t' the North West?'

The men gave him an appraising look.

'What's your problem, pal?' one of the men asked, with a pronounced Scouse accent.

'I'm on my way to rejoin my regiment but some dick nicked my rucksack. 'Ad my travel coupon in it, di'n'it. So I'm a bit fucked. If I don't ge' back in time, I'll be AWOL. We're off to Afghanistan in two weeks. I don' wanna be court-martialled, do I?'

The men studied him for a moment, then one said,

'How far you going, son?'

'Carlisle.'

'There's no Army Barracks in Carlisle, son,' another chipped in, 'Not unless you include the Territorials.'

'I'm meetin' up wiv a mate there. We're goin' on to Edinburgh togeva,' Sherlock explained, nonchalantly.

'A Scottish regiment? You don't sound very Scottish to me, pal,' the first man asserted.

'Nah, I don', do I.' Sherlock laughed, good-naturedly. 'My dad wuz Sco''ish, weren' 'e, so 'e insisted I joined a Sco''ish regiment, di'n't 'e.'

'Oh, stop giving the poor boy a hard time, you bunch o' old women,' a fourth man interjected. 'You stick wi' me, sonny. I'm goin' through Carlisle. I can tekk ya there, nae problem.'

Sherlock rewarded the man with one of his most winning smiles, pulled out a chair and sat at an adjacent table.

When the big Scottish driver finished his meal break, he bid his colleagues and occasional friends goodbye and he and Sherlock strolled from the cafeteria and out to his rig.

'What's your name, sonny?' the man asked, pleasantly.

'You'll larf,' Sherlock replied, feigning embarrassment.

'Course I won't,' the man replied.

'Hamish,' said Sherlock.

The man roared with laughter and slapped him on the back.

Once installed in the warm and comfortably appointed cab, and not certain how much longer he could sustain the accent, Sherlock wedged himself in the corner, between the seat back and the side door, closed his eyes and pretended to sleep. He did not have to pretend for long, however, as the motion of the vehicle and the stress of the day got the better of him and he drifted into sleep, and the juggernaut carried him further and further from everything he held dear.

ooOoo

Ten o'clock, Sunday morning, John and Molly said goodbye to Mary and walked to the tube station to begin their journey to the address of Jamie Eastridge. Mary had been most understanding about the complete disruption of her weekend with John. She could only imagine what Molly was going through. She had always marvelled at Molly and Sherlock's relationship. They were the archetypal odd couple – Sherlock so fey and other-worldly, Molly so down to earth and practical. That's probably what made it work. Complete opposites attract and also compliment, she concluded. She also marvelled at Sherlock's ability to inspire such loyalty in his friends. She was so aware that she had to share John with him. She would never ask John to choose between them because she had a distinct feeling that she would lose out.

John and Molly approached the local authority bungalow, up the ramp that led to the front door. This residence had obviously been adapted for the use of a disabled person. John rang the doorbell and, after a short interlude, the door was opened by a woman of indeterminate age. She could have been young but ill-preserved, or middle-aged and well-preserved. It was hard to tell. She looked at them enquiringly.

'Mrs Eastridge?' Molly asked.

The woman looked instantly alarmed. Molly smiled reassuringly but it had no effect on the woman's demeanour.

'Who wants to know?' she eventually asked.

'My name is Molly and this is John,' Molly had decided to go for the less scary low-tech approach.

'You're not bloody God-botherers, are you? 'Cos if you are, you can sling your hook,' the woman retorted, belligerently.

John decided to step in.

'We're doctors, madam,' he stated, bluntly.

'I'm not sick,' she wailed, back to being alarmed.

'We've come to see Mr James Eastridge. Is he here?'

'Er, no, he's just popped out. I can tell him you called. If you want to leave your number, I can get him to ring you back.'

'When do you expect him back?' John asked.

'Oh, who knows? He comes and goes as he pleases, really.'

'Who has he gone out with?' John asked, with a disarming smile.

'Oh, no one. He's just gone on his own.' She was beginning to perspire and she was twisting the fingers of her hands together.

'And your name is?' John asked.

'Er, Josie. I'm his, er, girlfriend,' she stammered.

'Well, Josie, thank you for your help.' John took out his notebook, wrote his mobile number on a page, tore it out and gave it to Josie.

'Please ask Mr Eastridge to call me.'

John smiled, Molly said goodbye and they walked away.

'Well, she's obviously lying,' John declared, 'and not just about him going out on his own.'

'What should we do now?' Molly asked.

'Let's wait and see if Mr Eastridge is as good at making posthumous phone calls as he is at post mortem letter-writing, shall we?' John replied and grinned, wickedly

ooOoo

Ten o'clock, Sunday morning, Mycroft and William were watching TV in the nanny's sitting room, in their pyjamas and dressing gowns, having eaten a hearty breakfast prepared by the cook in the house kitchen but served in the Nursery play room. Mycroft was reliving aspects of his own childhood that he had completely forgotten. In doing so, he was remembering the relationship he used to enjoy with his brother and recalling where it all went wrong.

Mycroft had been seven years old, when Sherlock came along, and the apple of his father's eye. The arrival of the new baby did not change any of that. His father had shown little or no interest in the new arrival. In the normal way of things, Sherlock would have been his mother's favourite but, having given birth to him, she almost immediately lost interest in him, too. Mycroft was not aware of this at the time – he was, after all, only seven – but he did become aware, as he grew up.

When Mycroft was eight, he went away to school, leaving Sherlock more or less alone, being cared for by the staff, whilst their father pursued his glittering career in diplomacy and his mother enjoyed her charity and committee work. Mycroft recalled how delighted Sherlock always was to see him, when he came home on exeat or for the holidays. Every time William greeted him, he could see Sherlock doing that self-same thing, thirty-odd years previously.

He and Sherlock used to play together, in the Nursery, around the house, on the estate. His brother would follow behind him, playing 'Grandmother's Footsteps' and scream with delight, when he turned around and caught him. He would come to show him treasures he had found – an owl pellet, a fox's skull, a dead frog – and they would go to the library and find a book about it, which Mycroft would then read to Sherlock. The favourite game was always 'Pirates'. Rainy days, the Nursery playroom became the pirates' ship, dry days, the garden became a Treasure Island, and, at bedtime, Sherlock would listen with rapt attention whilst Mycroft read 'Peter Pan'.

But it all became too much for him. By the time he turned thirteen, he could feel the weight of responsibility lying heavily upon him. He did not look forward to coming home and being pestered, by his little brother, to play 'Pirates' or look at his treasures. Mycroft's interests were different, he wanted to be left alone to do his own thing, so he pushed Sherlock away, hid from him, ignored him. He could clearly recall the hurt look on Sherlock's face when he rejected him. Was it any wonder that his brother had grown up to be so bitter and resentful? The consummate loner, utterly self-reliant, ruthless and single minded on the outside, all to mask the hurt child on the inside.

But why had Sherlock run? Mycroft could not get past that question. His life was better now than it had ever been. He had a true and loyal friend, a woman who loved him and whom, Mycroft believed, he loved in return, a beautiful child and an ideal career. What could have made him throw all that away? What could be so compelling as to over-ride all those advantages?

William broke into Mycroft's thoughts by pointing out something that was happening in the TV programme. Mycroft responded to William's query, then returned to his musings.

Recreating all these experiences now, with Sherlock's child, was bittersweet to the extreme. They were so similar, father and son. When he looked at the latter, he saw the former, and imagining the looks of hurt and confusion on William's face, that he had seen so many times on Sherlock's, was quite beyond bearing. Was he trying to make amends for his earlier mistakes by doing it right the second time around? Was it even possible to earn his brother's forgiveness through his child? All his previous attempts at redemption had met with suspicion and derision from Sherlock. Would he even get the opportunity to be forgiven? Would he ever see Sherlock again?

This final thought only served to strengthen his resolve. He would find his brother and he would deal with whatever it was that had sent him into melt down. He would do it, whatever it took!

His mobile rang and he snatched it up.

'Yes?' he snapped then listened to the caller. 'Yes' again and more listening, then 'Right, call a meeting, my office, twelve noon today. Yes, the usual parties and include DI Lestrade, too.'

He cut off the phone. His plans for his second day with William would have to be postponed until next time. Mrs Hudson, who had stayed over and was currently enjoying the company of his cook, having a good old chin-wag in the kitchen, would be pressed into service again, as William's minder, whilst he held a council of war to organise the hunt for his brother.

ooOoo

Ten o'clock, Sunday morning, and Sherlock was waiting outside the John Street hostel in Carlisle, hoping to find a place to stay for a day or two, with a warm bed and good food thrown in. The lorry driver had dropped him at the motorway exit at around six that morning, just the time, he imagined, when the game keeper would be discovering that his land rover was missing. He could almost hear the cog wheels grinding into motion – report the theft to the police, APB goes out on missing car at the same time that APB goes out on missing man. He could just imagine the news bulletin – man escapes from top security mental hospital; dangerous, do not approach; report sightings to local police. There would be a photograph; last seen wearing such and such; believed to be in the so and so area.

He would have to lie low today, as it was Sunday and nothing he needed in Carlisle would be open until tomorrow. He needed to change his appearance, get some at least half-decent hiking boots and warm weather proof clothing, sell some things to get cash. He was in survival mode, living on his wits, taking what he needed, avoiding capture. He had lived this way for three whole years. He was an expert. His association with the Homeless Network had also taught him a great deal about living on the street that would be invaluable, now, and his experiences with the Street Children, in Rio…but he couldn't even think about that. It was emotionally catastrophic.

The hostel door opened and a woman in an apron gave him a cheery smile.

'You alright, pet?' she asked in a cheery voice.

Sherlock gave a small shrug

'Bit o' breakfast would help,' he replied, in his best, Arthur-esque, Lancashire accent.

'Come on in, then, love,' she said, and welcomed him inside.

ooOoo

Molly's phone rang as she and John left the tube station, on their way back to John's flat. It was Mycroft, with an update.

'The game keeper at St Hugh's reported his vehicle stolen this morning and the SAS tracker followed what we believe to be Sherlock's trail right to the game keeper's cottage, where they found a dead badger, which had clearly been dragged along for some distance and had had something tied round its neck. We are fairly certain, then, that Sherlock took the land rover. The police have circulated the registration number of the vehicle. I've called a meeting at my office in Whitehall for noon today, to organise the wider search. I would be grateful if you and John could attend, too. I think we need to combine all our efforts.'

Molly was in complete agreement. Having been assured by Mycroft that William was fine and enjoying the attentions of Mrs Hudson and all his staff, she rang off. She and John headed back to the tube station.

ooOoo


	10. Chapter 10

**Disclaimer – I don't own the characters. They belong to ACD, MG and SM and the BBC. No one pays me to do this, I do it for love.**

**Chapter Nine**

When Molly and John arrived at the building opposite Horseguards Parade, they were admitted by the door man, taken via the lift to Mycroft's department and shown into a meeting room. The centre of the room was dominated by a large, rectangular table, with chairs arranged all around its perimeter. To the left of the door, through which they had just entered, was a side board laid with coffee cups, pots of coffee, jugs of hot and cold milk, bowls of brown and white sugar, granulated and lump, and a plate of biscuits. Several people were standing around the side board, in pairs and small groups, helping themselves to coffee and biscuits and talking, in hushed tones. John and Molly recognised Greg Lestrade and moved through the group towards him, pleased to see a friendly face. Greg greeted them and served them each with coffee, then they moved to one side, to allow others access to the refreshments.

'Rum old business, isn't it?' commented the DI. 'How are you coping, Molly?'

'Just don't be too nice to me, Greg, or I'll just start blubbing again,' she said, with a grim smile.

'Got any more news?' John asked.

'Well, do you know about the land rover, the one we think he nicked from the game keeper's cottage?'

They both nodded.

'Well, the Hertfordshire police put out a nationwide alert on its registration number and it's been found, at the Watford Gap services, and his prints are all over it. They checked the CCTV footage and there is an image of someone in the car park that could be him – I'd like you two to have a look at it and see what you think – but they are still checking the footage from inside the service building. The Herts Police only have a photo of him to compare with, at the moment, but I think Mycroft has some technology in mind to assist with that ID. I suspect he is not showing much of his face, but we do know – or believe – that he is wearing army fatigues, which he took from the nurse he mugged. Anyway, this meeting is Mycroft's show so we'd best wait and see what he has in mind.'

Almost as he said that, Mycroft strode into the room and up to the head of the table. Immediately, everyone stopped talking and took their places, waiting for Mycroft to start proceedings. He put his elbows on the table, folded his fingers together and began.

'I am organising this nationwide search in order to find my brother as quickly as possible. The centre piece of the search will be a blanket media campaign. Inspector Lestrade, you will be in charge of the police involvement. I have already called a press conference, which will take place at New Scotland Yard, this afternoon. I want you to read a prepared statement at that, Lestrade, and, Molly and John, I would like you both to make appeals to him to come home or present himself at a police station. Molly, William is on his way here, at the moment, with Mrs Hudson. We could have him at the conference, too. Obviously, as his mother, I leave that decision entirely up to you but I think we must consider all our options if we are to persuade Sherlock to abandon his current course of action.'

'My team are preparing Facebook and Twitter campaigns and there is to be a poster campaign, across the whole of Great Britain, which is being put together, as we speak. Molly, I'd like to confer with you to choose a photo to go on the posters and to go out to all the media. I believe he's still in the UK – I don't think he has had time to get out, yet - but all ports and points of exit are being monitored and there is an electronic alert out for him, including facial recognition technology so, even if he has disguised himself, it will only need a partial image to make a positive I.D.'

'The message we are putting out is that he has gone missing from a nursing home where he was being treated for severe PTSD, that he is not dangerous, except to himself, but that, if seen, he is not to be approached but that sightings should be reported to the police, immediately. Every public CCTV system connected to the national database will be scanned, using the facial recognition software. That covers shopping centres, high streets, garage forecourts, motorway services, bus and railway stations, the Underground, airports, leisure centres, hospitals – I think you take my point. The press conference will be broadcast in all news bulletins, on all the news channels, for the rest of today and on Breakfast Television tomorrow. News websites will be showing it too. Homeless shelters and hostels are being alerted to look out for him, as are hotels and guest houses.'

Mycroft paused, then turned to Anthea, his PA, who was sitting to his right.

'Have I missed anything?' he asked.

'No, sir,' she replied.

'Good,' he concluded. 'Any questions?'

No one had any questions.

'Good. Off you all go, then. Let's get on.'

Mycroft stood, the whole table rose and the room emptied very quickly, leaving just him, Molly, Greg and John behind. He turned to them.

'Do you have any questions?'

'Yes,' said Molly, 'what do you want us to say?'

Mycroft looked at Lestrade, who took his lead.

'We have a police psychologist who usually advises friends and relatives on what to say and how to pitch it.'

Molly thought about this and said,

'No, I'd rather have Eve's advice on that. She knows Sherlock and she knows what his mental state is at the moment. And I trust her.'

John had never met Eve but he took Molly's word that she was the right person, so he concurred that he would like her to advise him too.

'I believe that Dr Matthews is in the building,' said Mycroft. 'I'll try to locate her.' He went off into a corner, taking out his phone. Whilst he did this, John said to Molly,

'How do you feel about putting William in front of the cameras?'

Molly was not sure. She still had raw memories of the terrible ordeal that Moriarty's mother had put them through. Did she really want to potentially expose William to Sherlock's enemies, again? She wondered how Sherlock would feel about his son being paraded for the national press. She knew he would not approve. It was this that convinced her.

'No, John, I'm not going to allow it. Sherlock would hate it. I'm keeping William right out of it.'

Mycroft re-joined them and Molly gave him her decision, where William was concerned.

'I respect that,' Mycroft nodded. 'I will ring my chauffeur and ask him to take William and Mrs Hudson straight to your flat. They will be out of the way there and not at risk of getting caught up in all this. What do you think would be a suitable photograph for the campaign?'

'I'd like you to use the one I had enlarged for William, whilst Sherlock was away. It's a good likeness and it makes him look benign so people won't look at it and think he could be dangerous. Also, if he sees it himself, he will recognise it from William's bedroom. It will remind him what he has left behind,' Molly concluded.

ooOoo

In Carlisle, having enjoyed a good breakfast and a shower, Sherlock was exploring the back streets of the town, looking for likely places to conduct his business transactions, in the morning. He found a little barber shop, down a side alley, that looked like a perfect place to get his hair cut. He noted its location. On the High Street, he found a pawn shop. Looking in the window, he saw they had spaces, which he guessed would normally be filled with jewellery and watches. They were probably locked in a safe when the shop was closed. He would come back in the morning and pawn his watch.

He also located a camping shop which sold outdoor clothing and equipment. And it seemed to have a sale on. Courtesy of the current recession, all the shops on the High Street seemed to have sales on. He hoped to benefit from that, by bagging a few bargains. He needed thermal socks, leggings and tee shirts, a hoody, waterproof trousers and jacket, hiking boots, a beany hat, a sleeping bag and a back pack. He would also need an OS map and some energy bars – Kendal Mint Cake, and the like. He guessed he was talking about £500 for all that. His watch had cost £3,000. He would have to get as much as he could for it.

It was most frustrating that today was a Sunday. He needed to move fast and every moment he delayed allowed Mycroft to organise his forces. He hoped he could keep under the radar long enough to effect this part of his plan. Once he had changed his appearance and equipped himself, the next part of the plan would be much more straight-forward. He made his way back toward the hostel, slipped inside, found the bed he had been assigned, in a side room with four other occupants, and curled up to go to sleep. This would help to pass the time, at least.

ooOoo

Molly, John and Greg Lestrade sat, with Eve Matthews, in Mycroft's office. She was explaining to them her theory about why Sherlock had absconded.

'I believe he remembered something, in that last session, that appalled him. His Mind Palace shut him out. That Mind Palace is his own invention, designed to organise his thoughts and memories. This memory was so abhorrent to him that he had to put it somewhere where even he was not supposed to find it, somewhere in his sub-conscious, totally suppressed.'

'When he took the benzodiazepine, it relaxed his inhibitions, loosened the boundary between the conscious and sub-conscious, which was why he was able to recall going to Rio – though he had no memory of it at all in any of our original sessions. But when he came to the really bad memory, the protection he had put in place was reactivated and, metaphorically, the door was slammed in his face. But I suggested he try to find another way in and, because of his lowered inhibitions, he acted on my suggestion. He never would have done that, had it not been for the influence of the medication. I have two alternative theories to explain what happened next.'

'The first is that his sub-conscious mind sensed that he was about to access the memory and so caused him to throw up, to get rid of the remaining medication, or to interrupt the session, perhaps. My second theory is that he actually accessed the memory and was so shocked, he vomited spontaneously. If you were to ask me which theory I think is most accurate, well, based on the fact that he ran, almost immediately, afterwards, I would say the second. I think he is running away from himself. Whatever he's discovered about himself, he can't live with it. If he runs, he can become someone else, adopt an alternative persona. He won't have to be the person who did that thing, what ever it was.'

'So what can we say to persuade him to change his mind?' John asked.

'Just be yourselves and speak from the heart.'

John and Molly looked at one another. Neither was relishing this. They all stood up, John offered his hand to Molly, which she took, and Greg Lestrade led the way from the office, to the lift and out to the waiting car, which would take them to the Yard, where the press conference was to take place, in the press room.

When they arrived at the Yard, they were met by Sally Donovan.

'Everything is set up, sir. The conference is scheduled for four o'clock. Some press are here already,' she advised them.

'Let's go to my office and wait 'til they are ready for us,' Lestrade suggested.

While they were waiting, John's phone rang. The caller's number was not known to him. He looked at Molly, raised his eyebrows, answered the phone and switched it straight to speaker phone.

'John Watson,' he intoned.

'Oh, 'ello, Dr Watson. I was told you wanted to speak to me?'

John pressed the 'Record' button on his smart phone.

'And who are you, sir?' he asked.

'It's Jamie Eastridge, here,' came the reply.

'Oh, Mr Eastridge, I am so pleased to speak to you. How are you?'

'Er….I'm very well, thank you, doctor. How are you?'

'I'm fine, thank you very much,' John replied. 'I believe you were out when we called earlier.'

'Er…yes, I just popped out to buy a paper.'

'OK, well, we were just a bit concerned, as your neighbours said they hadn't seen you around for a while, so we just wondered if everything was alright, that's all.'

'Oh, everything is fine, thank you, doctor. Thank you for your concern.'

'And you're getting around alright, no problems with your mobility?'

'Er, no, thank you doctor. I've got my mobility scooter. I can go where I like, when I like.'

'So everything is absolutely fine, Mr Jamie Eastridge?'

'Couldn't be better, thanks, doc.'

'OK, no problem. Sorry to have bothered you,' John concluded. They both closed down.

Turning to the others in the room, John smiled and showed the 'Record' status on his phone. He had the call taped. Greg Lestrade gave him a quizzical look, so he and Molly explained about the information they obtained from Gilbert Eastridge about his disabled son, the day before, and the conversation they had had with the woman, Josie, that morning. It was the first opportunity they had had to feedback, due to the sudden dramatic developments in Sherlock's situation. Lestrade considered what John and Molly had told him then he said,

'Now we have a name, we can confirm his identify with dental records and then the officers in charge of this case should be able to take it from there. Good work, guys. D. Division will be well pleased to get this one laid away.'

Sally Donovan came to the door to tell them the press conference was ready for them.

ooOoo

John, Molly, Greg and Sally walked into the press room and took their places at the top table. Neither John nor Molly had ever experienced anything like it. Ranged across the back of the room, there were TV cameras, some on stands, others being held on people's shoulders; down each side, there were at least thirty photographers, all brandishing cameras, bristling with lenses of every possible dimension, and, as they entered the room, flash bulbs began to pop, all around the room, dazzling them as they were directed, by Sally, where to sit. Seated on rows of chairs, in the main body of the room, were the massed ranks of the national and local press. John was reminded of the press presence outside 221 Baker Street, at the start of Moriarty's trial, but this seemed even more intimidating than that. Then, their focus had been on Sherlock, today, it was on him and Molly.

Sgt Donovan called the conference to order and introduced everyone on the panel, although they all had name plates on the table in front of them. Then the DI read out the statement that Mycroft had prepared.

'We are extremely concerned for the welfare of the Consulting Detective, Sherlock Holmes, who went missing yesterday from a specialist nursing home where he was being treated for severe Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. He is not considered dangerous to the public but may be at risk of self-harm, particularly if threatened or challenged. The public are advised not to approach him but to report any sightings to their local police or to the special number that has been set up to take your calls. His last known location was Watford Gap service station, yesterday evening. At that time, he was wearing army fatigues and a camouflage jacket. This is a nationwide appeal. He could be anywhere.'

Sally Donovan then introduced Sherlock's 'friend and colleague, Dr John Watson'. John cleared his throat, looked straight down the camera lens directly opposite him and spoke, as advised, from the heart.

'Look, Sherlock, if you are watching this, just stop being a prat and come home, or pick up the phone and call me and I'll come and get you. Whatever you think the problem is, we can sort it. Nothing is ever as bad as you think it is, OK?'

He nodded then turned to Sally Donovan, to indicate that he had finished. Sally then introduced Molly as 'close friend and associate, Dr Molly Hooper'. This was at Molly's request. Sherlock was a very private person; he would not want his personal life bandied across the nation's TV screens or the front pages of every newspaper in the land. Following John's lead, Molly looked straight down the nearest camera lens, and said,

'Sherlock, please call me and let me know you're safe. If you can't come back, or don't want to, that's fine and you don't even have to tell me where you are but I need to know you are alright. We both do. We both need to know you're OK.'

She looked down, to show she was done, and John squeezed her hand under the table. Sherlock would know who 'we' referred to. It was no one else's business.

Sally Donovan then invited the journalists to ask questions. That opened the flood gates and there was a barrage of shouts and calls, nearly all referring to the infamous trial of James Moriarty, Sherlock's arrest, disgrace and 'suicide' and the subsequent revelations about Moriarty's criminal empire and Sherlock's return from the dead. John and Molly refused to answer any of these questions and only answered ones relevant to the matter in hand, that he had been showing symptoms of PTSD for about a month and had been admitted to the nursing home on Thursday.

After a few minutes, Sally announced that the conference was over and no further questions would be taken, then she and DI Lestrade led John and Molly from the room. Once out in the corridor, Greg turned and congratulated them on how they had handled the whole experience, and, particularly, how they had coped with the questioning.

'Right, let's hope they give us a fair hearing. One never knows how the press will handle something like this. They rarely let the truth get in the way of a good story.'

ooOoo

Sherlock was dreaming about Rio de Janeiro. He was hiding in a pile of rubbish, under the metal rungs of a fire escape. He had been there for about five minutes and his breathing had slowed, following his frantic dash for freedom. He was gazing at the building across the narrow road when he realised he was being watched. There was a boy standing against the opposite wall, not moving, just staring at him. His skin tone and the clothes that he was wearing blended so well with the dusky colour of the wall that he was almost perfectly camouflaged. As Sherlock's eyes met his, he made a slight movement with his head then put a finger up to his lips in the universal sign for 'Quiet'.

The boy then pushed off from the wall and sauntered across to the fire escape, picked up a bag of trash and casually tossed it on top of the gap above Sherlock's head, hiding him completely from sight. The boy then sat on the bottom stair of the fire escape and began casually rolling a cigarette. Moments later, Sherlock heard running feet and two men's voices, shouting. The men stopped, right next to the fire escape, and shouted something in Portuguese at the boy. He replied then they shouted again and ran on down the road. The boy finished rolling his cigarette and then sat and, calmly, smoked it. This took about ten minutes, during which time, Sherlock sat completely still, despite the nauseating smell coming from the bag of rubbish, inches from his face and the tempting aroma of cigarette smoke. Having finished the cigarette, the boy turned slightly toward Sherlock and said,'

'_Americano_?'

Sherlock wracked his brains for the Portuguese for 'No.' There had been a boy with a Portuguese mother in his house, at prep school and he had learned a few phrases from him but it had been years since he had even thought about that. Suddenly, it popped into his head,

'_Negativa, sou ingles_.'

The boy nodded then said, with a thick accent,

'You stay, I go. It dark, I back for you, _sim_?'

Sherlock remembered. '_Sim_' was an informal word for 'Yes.'

'_Sim_,' he answered. The boy turned and ran away.

Sherlock sat, considering his options. The boy had promised to come back for him when it was dark but he had no way of knowing if he would return, or even that he wouldn't return with the men who were looking for him. But the boy had not given him away, when the shouting men had come by and Sherlock was fairly sure those men were after him. For some reason, he felt he could trust this boy not to betray him. He had little alternative. He did not know where he was, he was alone and he had no way of contacting anyone who could help him. Trying to locate the British or American Embassies was not an option until it was dark, anyway. Perhaps the boy, when he returned, could help him do that. Sherlock settled down amongst the trash and the flies and the rustling sounds that he thought might be evidence of rats, and tried to relax.

In his borrowed bed in the homeless hostel, Sherlock dreamed those smells and sounds and the tension of the moment, and muttering, thrashed about, restlessly, in his sleep, then rolled over with a sigh and slept soundly until cooking smells woke him in the late afternoon.

ooOoo

John dropped Molly off, in a cab, at her home then continued on to his home and to Mary. Molly let herself into her flat to be greeted by William, with a tight hug that lasted quite some time. This was the longest she had been separated from him since she came out of the hospital after her near-death experience. She was reminded of that separation and perhaps so was he. She carried him into the sitting room and Mrs Hudson appeared form the kitchen, where she had been preparing a meal.

'Molly, dear, how are you?' the older lady asked, eyes full of concern.

'Oh, you know, Mrs H, bearing up, as they say. How's William been?'

'Oh, pretty good, you know, but missing you - and his dad, of course.'

'Yes, we're all missing him, aren't we?' Molly agreed.

ooOoo

In the late afternoon, Mycroft sat at his desk, in his Whitehall office, reviewing the events of the day, in his head. They had achieved a great deal in a relatively short time. The poster campaign had begun. Copies had been emailed to every police force in the country and every public organisation, from local councils to hospitals, colleges, leisure centres and so on. The CCTV network was primed to flag up any sighting of Sherlock, through the facial recognition software. The media would begin broadcasting the appeal within the hour. The Facebook and Twitter campaign had already begun. No way could Sherlock escape this net.

The phone on his desk rang shrilly and he picked it up before it could ring again.

'Yes?' he answered. As he listened to the person on the other end, his facial expression became increasingly concerned. After a few moments of intent listening, he replied,

'Right away, sir' and put down the receiver.

Mycroft Holmes rarely used expletives. His encyclopaedic knowledge of spoken English meant he was seldom unable to express whatever meaning he wished to convey but, on this occasion, words failed him.

'Damn and blast!' he muttered, then pressed the intercom button on his desk phone and said,

'Anthea, we are needed at Number Ten. Please alert my minder, would you? We leave immediately.'

It was only a short walk from Mycroft's office on Whitehall to Downing Street so he would not be taking his car but his chauffeur also doubled as his body guard and, when working, Mycroft never went anywhere without him, nor, indeed, without his PA. As he and Anthea took the antique lift to the ground floor, she glanced at him, enquiringly.

'Another terrorist attack on a hotel complex in East Africa,' he explained. 'The PM wants all his advisers in the Cabinet Office, at once. He is preparing a press statement, to be issued immediately. Forgive me for being selfish, but this will knock Sherlock's appeal right out of the news bulletins and off the front pages for days. What is one Missing Person compared with multiple hostages? We'll be lucky to make page fifteen, just ahead of the Star Signs and the Classifieds.'

ooOoo


	11. Chapter 11

**Disclaimer – I don't own the characters. They belong to ACD, MG and SM and the BBC. No one pays me to do this, I do it for love.**

**Chapter Ten**

John walked into the A and E at St Mary's, on his day shift rotation and surveyed the remnants of the weekend onslaught. Scanning the case notes, he clocked a selection of alcohol poisonings, drug overdoses and victims of assault; one knife wound, some sports injuries and a little old lady with a heart problem. Pretty much par for the course, he thought, and got down to work. He didn't get a moment to himself until lunch time, when he managed to grab a sandwich and a coffee in the hospital canteen, and took the opportunity to ring D Division, to speak to DI Browning or his Second in Command, DS Cromer. It was Cromer who picked up.

'Hi, John Watson here. Did you read my email?' he launched straight in.

'Sure did, John. Wow, impressive work, I must say. Glad you called because I just need to check a few points with you,' Cromer began.

'Fire away,' John replied.

'This ID on the stiff, is it confirmed?'

'The DNA test is pretty conclusive but you could order a comparison with dental records which would put the final stamp on it. We can also access his medical records, now we have a name, and find out what his condition was and how it was being treated. I got the results of the tox screen and the genetic analysis today and the medication identified in his system correlates with the condition the corpse was suffering from. They found anti-convulsants and muscle relaxants in his blood and this particular type of dwarfism has a high probability of epilepsy and is characterised by painful muscle spasms, which would require that type of treatment. If Mr Eastridge's medical records concur then I think we can say with a fair degree of certainty that this is indeed Mr Jamie Eastridge.'

'Er, good, thank you, doc. So, the woman you spoke to, this 'Josie' person, she claimed she was his girlfriend?'

'She most certainly did.'

'Do you think she is living there?'

'No idea. She was there when we called but we didn't hang around to see if she left.'

'And the man who rang you, was he there when you called at the bungalow?'

'We didn't see anyone else but that's not to say he wasn't.'

'OK, it's just that, we would like to collar them both at the same time, to give them less chance to scarper or destroy evidence, if you get my drift.'

John was beginning to wonder whether this man would like him to wipe his nose and cut up his food for him, too. He quietly thanked the god of small things that Greg Lestrade was such an excellent cop and that Sally Donovan, for all her faults, was damned efficient.

'I can't advise you on that, Sargent. But I do have a request.'

'What's that,' Cromer asked, sounding a little disappointed.

'I'd like to be allowed to observe when you question them.'

'I'm sure that could be arranged. You might even be able to advise us on what questions we should be asking.'

For a moment, John wondered was this man for real or was this his idea of ironic humour? He feared it was the former. He said goodbye, hung up and went back to work.

ooOoo

Sherlock stepped out through the front door of the hostel, onto the pavement, having eaten a good breakfast and with a mission to complete. He had risen early, after another disturbed night full of disturbing dreams, eaten and set out. He would have liked to shower but undressing was a problem. There was very little privacy in the hostel and the fact that he was wearing Gucci shoes had not gone unnoticed. If anyone had spotted his Armani suit or Paul Smith shirt, it might have tipped the curiosity balance, so he had kept his camouflage clothing on throughout his stay, which was not unusual amongst the homeless. They liked to keep their few possessions close. He was about to amend the clothing situation but first things first. He turned and headed for the barber's shop.

Pushing open the door, which made a nostalgic ringing noise, as it knocked against the bell suspended from the ceiling, he stepped into the shop. The barber, a middle aged man, turned to greet him with a friendly smile.

'Good morning, sir. What can I do for you, today?'

Channelling Captain John Watson, but with the Arthur accent, he asked for a short back and sides. He took off his camouflage jacket, revealing the suit beneath, but he was no longer 'homeless', he was a 'serving officer' in the Fifth Northumberland Fusiliers, so a fancy suit was not beyond the bounds of possibility.

'What brings you to these parts then?' asked the barber, as he gowned up his first customer of the day and began to attack his hair. Sherlock related his tale of being an officer in the army, who had been on six months' extended compassionate leave following a family crisis but was now on his way back to join his regiment, which was leaving for Afghanistan in a month. The barber turned out to be a Falklands veteran so had plenty of army anecdotes to share and, courtesy of John's war experiences, and his penchant for relating them, in graphic detail, when half cut, Sherlock had quite a few amusing ones of his own. Forty-five minutes later, the new hair style was achieved.

'Would you like me to do something about that?' the barber asked, referring to his two-day stubble. Sherlock grinned at him, through the mirror.

'No, I think I'll 'ang on t' tha' a bi' longer, thanks, mate.'

For two day's growth, it was a bit of a sorry sight. Sherlock was not what one might call a 'blue chin'. His facial hair was very slow growing. It would be a good few weeks before he could audition for Captain Birdseye commercials. He needed all the growth he could get. Having been brushed down by the helpful ex-squaddie, Sherlock put his camouflage jacket back on and, taking out his wallet, handed the man his £50 note.

'Sorry, I don't 'ave anythin' smaller,' he apologised.

'You put your money away, sir. You young lads, out there, risking your lives to protect us back here; my old dad would never forgive me if I took your money.'

Sherlock felt a pang of guilt for deceiving this generous and kindly man but he had to preserve his cover so he thanked him profusely and left the shop, jamming Arthur's beret back on his head and raising his jacket hood to protect his neck, exposed now, where his hair used to be, and to hide his face from the high street cameras.

Next stop was the pawn shop. He needed to redeem his watch for some readies. Another bell jingled on another shop door. The man behind the counter looked up from the racing page of his redtop. Sherlock had checked out the window on his way past and could see some fairly decent watches on display. His watch would not scare this man.

'How much for this?' he asked, taking the watch off his wrist and passing it across the counter. The man put a glass in his eye and took a good look at the time piece. He could see it was the genuine article, not a fake.

'I'll give you £200,' he said.

'No chance', replied Sherlock.

The man thought a bit more.

'£300'

'That watch cost me £3000. Look it up in your catalogue. You can get £1500 for that, easy. So make me a serious offer or I'll go somewhere else.'

The man thought again, then said,

'I'll have to ring my boss'.

Sherlock shrugged. The guy took out his mobile and speed dialled the shop owner. After a brief, mumbled conversation, that Sherlock didn't bother to eavesdrop on, the man hung up and returned to the negotiations.

'I can offer you £800.'

Sherlock held his hand out for the watch, shaking his head.

'OK, £1000,' the man spluttered.

'Cash?'

'Of course,' was the reply.

'Deal,' agreed Sherlock and offered his hand to shake.

As Sherlock left the pawn shop, pocketing his grand, and heading for the next part of his mission, the man behind the counter flicked the pages of his newspaper from the weekend racing results to Page Three, passing right over, without a second glance, a photo of his last customer, under a banner headline that read:

**Disappearing Detective: Sherlock Shocker**.

Sherlock's next stop was a cheap but cheerful clothing store, where he bought a triple pack of boxers and the same of socks. Wearing his underwear for a third day was not too bad but longer than that was not an option. He knew a boy at school who made it his mission to wear the same pair of boxers for a whole half term. Matron had to threaten him with Custos to get him to give them up to the laundry, after a month. At that stage, they could practically walk on their own. He had no desire to go down that route.

Between that shop and the camping store, he nipped into the public toilets and took off the fatigues, stuffing them into his shop bag. He needed to change his cover story for the next part of the mission. Gone was the captain from the Fifth Northumberland Fusiliers; here now was the smart business man, buying outward bound gear for a 'Stag' holiday, doing the Three Peaks Challenge with a bunch of mates.

Ducking out of the Gents, he kept his back to the one CCTV camera he had clocked, above the frontage of a jewellery store, and slipped straight into the camping shop, approached the counter and giving them his spiel. Leaving there, half an hour later and £300 lighter, he had all his purchases inside his newly acquired back pack. He turned left out of the shop and took the first left, to take him off the High Street. Cutting through the back streets, he made his way to the local leisure centre.

This was a calculated risk but he needed somewhere to change out of his suit into the survival gear and he wanted to start out clean so he planned to go for a swim, take a shower and then, having donned his new persona of back-packer/hiker, he would walk straight from there into the wilderness. Amongst his purchases, in the camping shop, had been a pair of swimming shorts and a pair of wrap-around sun glasses. The glasses, he was wearing, when he paid for his swim and hired a towel for an extra quid.

The public swimming pool was very quiet at this time of the morning. The early swimmers had been and gone, the lunch time crowd were two hours away. He had the pool almost to himself, which was not great for cover but he needed this swim. He kept his face in the water as much as possible, guessing that facial recognition software was his biggest enemy. After swimming lengths for nearly an hour, he hauled himself from the water, and padded to the shower, rubbing his face with his hired towel. After a long, hot shower, he dressed in his new clothes, and packed his Gucci shoes, Armani suit and Paul Smith shirt into his new back pack, along with the fatigues, the camouflage jacket and the beret.

His two alter egos were packed away in the bag, along with his spare underwear, energy bars, water bottle, Ecover toiletries and herbal mouth wash, all bought at the camping shop. They think of everything, there, he thought. His arctic sleeping bag was stowed in the bottom section of the pack and the rolled up ground sheet was tied on by the bungee straps, over the top flap. The wet shorts, he wrapped in the shop bag and stuffed in the bungee-mesh pocket, on the outside of the pack. He could dry them out later. The OS map was in the side pocket, where he could easily access it. Dumping the towel in the laundry bin on his way by, he hefted the back pack and headed for the exit.

As he passed through Reception, his eye was caught by a poster being pinned to the front notice board in the lobby of the centre, right where people came in and out. It was a picture of him, the one from William's bedroom, under the heading:

**Missing Person**

**Have you seen this man?**

There was small print underneath the photo but he did not stop to read it. His heart was pounding, not because he realised how fast the chasing pack were coming up on him – he'd been there before and lived to tell the tale – but because that image transported him back to Molly's flat, to his son's bedroom, to the first time he laid eyes on him, in person, and touched his hair with his finger-tips; and his heart broke all over again. Tears sprang into his eyes, as he pushed through the swing doors of the Leisure Centre, turned right and strode away from the Cumbrian town, towards the Highlands of Scotland.

ooOoo

Back in the John's Street Hostel, the manager, who had just enjoyed a rare weekend off, came out of her office, carrying an A4 poster she had just printed off the computer. It was a nationwide alert for a vulnerable missing person, a young man suffering from PTSD, who was dearly loved by family and friends, who just wanted his safe return. It had melted her heart when she read the blurb and looked at the photo. Such a handsome young chap, she thought. Such a shame! As she pinned the poster on the hostel notice board, the cook came and stood at her shoulder. Looking at the image, she suddenly put her hand up to her mouth.

'Oh my God!' she gasped.

'What's wrong?' her colleague asked, alarmed by the woman's behaviour.

'He's here! He turned up yesterday. He's sleeping in the five-bedder!'

'What, now? He's not there now, is he?'

'No, he got up early, had some breakfast and went out. But he's here, in Carlisle. Quick! Phone the police! Ring that special number! Oh. My. God!'

ooOoo


	12. Chapter 12

**Disclaimer – I don't own the characters. They belong to ACD, MG and SM and the BBC. No one pays me to do this, I do it for love.**

**Chapter Eleven**

Greg Lestrade was feeling the pressure. These things were always a gamble. You throw something out there, you're never quite sure what you are likely to get back but this was bloody ridiculous. It was eleven o'clock on Monday morning and, already, they had had nearly five hundred sightings of Sherlock Holmes reported. And the locations of these sightings ranged from Bude in Cornwall to Aberdeen, Aberystwyth to King's Lynn. The whole country had gone Sherlock-spotting crazy.

This happened quite often with an appeal of this nature. He was not exactly sure why. He wondered sometimes whether people just liked to join in, like it was some sort of game – Spot the Sherlock, a bit like 'Where's Wally?' His problem was that every one of these sightings had to be checked out because one of them might be authentic. The best indicator that one was genuine was if you got a cluster of sightings. There was still no guarantee, since there was a kind of mass hysteria that could infect a whole area, if just one person claimed to have seen something, causing lots of others to jump on the band wagon, but that was the nature of the beast and it was down to his department to co-ordinate all these sightings, log them, map them and let the local forces, on the ground, do the actual checking out, to test the validity.

That was exactly what happened to the call that the manager of St John's Road hostel made to the dedicated number on Monday morning. Her call was taken at a temporary call centre that had been set up, specifically for this purpose. There were four civilians, employed by the police, manning the call centre.

'Missing Person Hot Line, can I have your name, please?'

'Er, Joan Hargreaves.'

'And your phone number?'

'Er, this is an ex-directory number, I'm afraid. I can't give it to you.'

'Do you have a mobile we could call you on, should we need to speak to you again?'

'Er, yes,' and she gave her personal mobile number.

'Thank you. That's just in case we need to ring you back for any reason, OK?'

'Oh, yes, that's fine,' she replied.

'OK. How can I help you?'

'I wish to report a sighting of that young man, the one with PTSD,' she said, succinctly.

This pleased the call centre operator no end. She had had any number of gabblers and garblers already this morning.

'Where did this sighting take place?'

'At the St John's Street Homeless Hostel in Carlisle, in Cumbria.'

Better and better, thought the operator.

'And can you tell me what you saw?'

'Well, it wasn't me who actually saw him, actually. No, I was having a weekend off and had gone to visit my mother in the nursing home but when I came in this morning, I switched on the computer, to check my emails and I saw this one from the London…'

'Mrs Hargreaves?' interrupted the operator, thinking, spoke too soon. 'Can you tell me who did make the sighting?'

'My cook told me, when she saw the picture on the poster. She said he was here, at the weekend.'

'Could I speak to the cook?'

'Er, she is a bit busy. She's cooking lunch for twenty-four hungry homeless people.'

'I promise to be really quick,' said the operator, patiently.

'OK, hang on a minute.'

The operator heard Joan Hargreaves put down the phone and walk away, then some distant voices, then some approaching footsteps, then the receiver being picked up again.

'Hello?' said a nervous voice.

'Hello, this is the Missing Person Hot Line. I believe you had a sighting of a missing person?'

'Yes, he was right here. He turned up on Sunday morning and stayed last night, then he got up this morning, had his breakfast and went out so he is somewhere in Carlisle. He's probably down by the river or maybe Portland Square, or even the cemetery, that's where they tend to hang out, these young 'uns. But I expect he'll be back for his lunch.'

'So it was Sherlock Holmes that you saw?'

'The one with PTSD, yes, I recognised him from the photograph – dark, wavy hair, cheekbones, lovely eyes.'

'And you expect him to return?'

'Well, he's only been here one night. They usually stay longer than one night.'

'OK, Mrs….?'

'Clutton.'

'Right, Mrs Clutton, I have logged your sighting. If he should return, could I ask you and your other staff just to behave normally toward him, so as not to worry him and to ring your local police station and give them the ID number I am about to give you? Can you do that?'

'Oh, yes,' she replied.

The operator gave her a number, which she wrote down on the desk pad, then the two women rang off.

The operator reached her arms up above her head and stretched her back and shoulders. That was the twentieth call she had taken in an hour and she was exhausted already. She logged the call on the database and entered it in her written log as well. It was then up to the police officers to decide which sightings to prioritise. Her job was just to take the details.

ooOoo

After leaving the leisure centre, Sherlock struck out on a footpath, across the fields, to join the A7 route, heading toward Longtown and the border between England and Scotland. He needed to walk. Seeing his photograph and the associations it had made in his mind had rocked him. He was cursing Mycroft. That photograph! He just had to use that one, didn't he! He was good at mind games. He knew that photo would strike a chord. Minister for Dirty Tricks, alright.

Sherlock was channelling his emotions into anger because that was a much easier emotion to cope with. He strode on, his fury giving extra energy to his pace. At this rate, he could probably walk to Arbroath in a day! The presence of the poster was a game changer. It told him everything he needed to know about Mycroft's strategy. He had obviously come out all guns blazing and was employing every ounce of his power and influence to spread a countrywide net in which to trap him. Well, he had shown his hand too soon.

Sherlock had intended to work his way north by foot, travelling through the landscape like any other hiker, sticking as much as possible to public footpaths and avoiding roads and civilisation but that was no longer an option. Speed had again become of the essence. He needed to reach his goal as quickly as possible which meant hitching a ride or rides but, if he used the same tactic as he had at Watford Gap, he may strike lucky again. He needed to get over the border – that was a psychological milestone, getting into Scotland – and then he needed to find a truck stop and try to get a ride to Arbroath.

ooOoo

In the pawn shop, the man behind the counter had had a relatively busy day, some people depositing, some people redeeming – Mondays were a bit like that. His newspaper had been put down and picked up numerous times and become rather crumpled. He picked it up in both hands, to tap it on his counter and put it back into good order, but the middle spread dropped out and slipped to the floor. Bending down to pick it up, his eye was drawn to a large head shot photo of a man. He was brought up short and stood, staring at the sheet of paper in his hand.

'Fuck me!' he blurted out.

He spread the sheet on the counter to take a better look at the photo of the guy with the watch and to read the article. Putting his hands up to his head, he looked around, unable to think straight, such was the shock of recognition. Then he saw the contact number. It was an 0800 number so would not cost him anything if he used the shop landline. That was the deciding factor. He picked up the receiver and dialled the number.

ooOoo

Sally Donovan, in the task room set up to co-ordinate the police response to Sherlock Holmes' disappearance, was scanning the big screen that plotted the sightings as they were called in and logged by the phone operators. She saw a red spot pop up in the border town of Carlisle. That was the second one there. Her eyes moved on – one in Glasgow, a couple in Edinburgh, quite a few in Newcastle. The local police would be following up these reports, checking CCTV footage, taking statements, assessing the credibility of each alleged sighting.

She walked around the room, glancing at the computer screens, where officers were checking emails from the other police forces, reporting their findings for each sighting investigated. This was a time consuming process but it was necessary, in order to sort the wheat from the chaff. There was no other way for it. She continued round the room until she came back to her own desk, where Greg Lestrade was currently sitting, absent-mindedly drinking her tea and looking at the collated report of all the checked out sightings.

'Anything interesting, sir?' she asked.

He sat back in the chair, shaking his head from side to side and was just about to take another swig of her tea when he realised whose cup he was holding.

'Oh, sorry,' he said, offering the cup up to her. She patted him on the shoulder.

'You drink it, sir. I'll make myself another.'

ooOoo

Sherlock had stopped for a break. He was sitting on a raised bank, over-looking the A7, in the warm mid-day sunlight. His new hiking boots were rubbing a little on his heels, so he took them off, and his two pairs of socks – one normal and one hiking – and took the packet of blister plasters out of his back pack. He stretched his legs out in front of him and wiggled his toes in the fresh air. Reaching into his pack again, he pulled out an energy bar and his water bottle, which he had filled up at the leisure centre. There he sat, scanning the view, eating his lunch, feeling the warmth of the sun, looking like any other back-packing hiker. Inside his head, he was in Rio.

It was pitch dark now, in the back street where Sherlock sat on the ground, leaning against the wall, covered in trash, under the fire escape. He had dozed lightly, during the long hours of the day. A couple of rats had crawled across his legs, tickling his hand with their whiskers, where it lay, in his lap. The flies had been the most annoying - buzzing around his face and crawling over his eyes and mouth - not to mention the heat and the stench generated by the decomposing rubbish, but he had not moved. He felt the boy return, rather than heard him. Then he heard him,

'_Ingles, vem comigo_,' he whispered, and lifted the sack of trash off Sherlock's head.

Sherlock rose up out of the pile of rubbish as quietly as he could and crawled out from under the fire escape, his muscles stiff and his joints complaining after hours of inactivity. He could barely see a hand in front of his face, it was so dark, but the boy took hold of his wrist and led him through the twists and turns of their journey.

Gradually, the nature of the surrounding architecture changed from quite tall and substantial to low and rather homemade. He guessed that they were entering a favela. As they moved out of the built up area, the sky broadened out, the moon and starlight illuminated their path and the boy let go of his wrist. There were more people around; there were lights and cooking fires. No one gave Sherlock a second glance. He was looking round, trying to process the multiple sensory stimuli that assaulted him.

Suddenly, up ahead, he saw the outline of two uniformed police men, striding toward them, side by side, filling the path that he and his guide were following. The boy clocked them at the same time and immediately grasped Sherlock's arm, clinging to him and smiling up into his face in a very provocative manner. Sherlock got the message, straight away and, although the very thought of violating this innocent child made him sick to his stomach, he reached round with his free hand, stroked the boy's head and face, giving him what he hoped would be a convincingly lustful leer. The two policemen strode past, making, he imagined, some lewd comment. Once they were passed and had walked on some way, the boy released Sherlock's arm and patted him on the back.

'_Ei, bom trabalho_,' he congratulated Sherlock, who nodded his thanks both for the compliment and for the appreciation that the whole notion of what they had implied was repulsive to him.

They walked on until the boy turned down a narrow path between the shacks made of corrugated metal, boards of plywood and sheets of plastic. They trotted down a slope until they came to a small yard which formed the approach to another shack, slightly larger than any Sherlock had seen so far. As they entered the yard, the boy called out and a form rushed out of the shack and threw itself at his companion, hugging him tightly. The boy said something and the girl – it was a girl - moved back and turned to stare at the stranger, with unabashed curiosity.

'_Esta 'e a minha casa_,' the boy said, indicating the building with his hand and inviting his guest to enter.

Sitting on the bank in the warm sunlight, Sherlock hugged his thighs to his chest, put his head on his knees and shook with silent sobs, just a small blip in the wide landscape, as a buzzard wheeled and called in the clear blue sky.

ooOoo

In the barber's shop, the regular crew were all assembled, chatting, telling jokes, passing the time of day. It was approaching lunch time and they were thinking about debunking to the local for pie and a pint. Fred was reading the paper.

'Eh, look at this! Remember that detective bloke, the one who jumped off the roof of that 'ospital in London a coupl'a'years back, then turned up alive, 'bout a year ago?'

'Is there a point to this story, Fred, or are you just testin' to see whether or not we've all got senile dementia?' one of the other men asked.

'No, look, he's gone missin' agen. Look.' He held the paper up for all the others to see. Bill, the barber, glanced at it then looked again.

'Hang on a minute; I think I've seen him.

'Oh, sure you have, Bill! Missin' detectives walk in 'ere every day to get their 'air cut, don't they!' guffawed the resident comedian.

'No, no, seriously, he were in 'ere this mornin'. I cut 'is 'air.' Bill had now taken the paper from Fred and was looking at the photograph of Sherlock in the light from the window.

'Yes, it is him. But he told me he were an officer in the Fifth Northumberland Fusiliers.'

'No,' corrected Fred, 'he's not the soldier. It's 'is boyfriend what's the soldier, that bloke he lives with. He was an army doctor in Afghanistan, don't you remember? It was all over the papers when he jumped and then again when he turned up alive,'

'So 'ow come 'e's the one with Post Traumatic whatsaname, if it's 'is boyfriend what's the soldier?'

'I dunno, maybe it's catchin' or summat,' concluded Fred.

'Well, whatever, I don't care. It were 'im an' he seemed like a nice bloke. Poor lad, PTS...that thing, it's no joke. We 'ad blokes go down wi' it after the Falklands. I'm ringin' that number,' and Bill picked up the phone.

ooOoo

On the big screen in the incident room, a third dot came on in Carlisle.

'That's interesting,' said Lestrade. Sally looked to where he was pointing - three red dots in Carlisle. That was the most so far in one small place. That could be significant, or could not, but it was interesting. A moment later, the young PC with a talent for technology burst into the room.

'Sir, we've got a partial on the Facial Recognition, claims it's a match for Sherlock.'

'Where?' Greg asked, getting up from his chair.

'Carlisle Leisure Centre.'

'Get me Carlisle Nick on the phone,' shouted the DI.

ooOoo


	13. Chapter 13

**Disclaimer – I don't own the characters. They belong to ACD, MG and SM and the BBC. No one pays me to do this, I do it for love.**

**To all those who have been kind enough to 'follow' or 'favourite' my story, I give sincere thanks. For those who have taken the trouble to review it, I am deeply grateful. Your encouraging words have been inspirational! **

**Chapter Twelve**

Mycroft was frustrated with inactivity. He had been sitting in his office all morning, waiting for news but none was forthcoming. Then a thought occurred to him. He pressed the intercom on his desk phone. Anthea responded immediately.

'Sir?'

'Get me the British Consul in Rio de Janeiro, please, Anthea,' Mycroft asked.

Taking his finger off the intercom button, he put his elbows on the table and steepled his hands together. A moment later, the phone on his desk rang. He picked up, straight away.

'Good morning, Consul, Mycroft Holmes here,' Mycroft introduced himself, as a matter of protocol, since the identity if the caller was already known to the Consul.

'Good morning Holmes. What can I do for you?'

'I need some information concerning an incident that occurred a couple of years ago. Do you remember that business with the Organised Crime Syndicate and the poppy farmers' cartel?'

'In deed, I do. A very odd business, I seem to remember. The man representing the cartel was murdered in his own home, wasn't he? Throat cut, if memory serves?'

'Was anyone ever convicted of that murder?'

'I would need to check the records on that one, I'm afraid. Organised crime is rather thick on the ground here, you understand, and turf wars are commonplace.'

'So you think it was a grudge killing by a rival cartel or some such organisation?'

'Oh, please don't quote me, Mycroft. I really am speaking off the top of my head. Let me look into it. What exactly do you need to know?'

'I would like to see all the documentation surrounding the activities of the man who was murdered – his known associates, his movements immediately before the incident and the evidence found at the scene. That should be enough to be going on with, thank you.'

'You feeling bored, Mycroft?'

'Something like that,' Mycroft replied and the two men exchanged a few pleasantries and rang off.

Mycroft went back to steepling his fingers, deep in thought. There was a quiet knock at his office door and he called 'Come in'.

Anthea put her head round the door,

'There's news, sir. Multiple sightings in Carlisle and a partial has been alerted on Fax-Rex.'

'Show me,' said Mycroft, rising to his feet. He followed Anthea back into her office and stood behind her chair whilst she sat down and tapped a few keys on her key board.

Mycroft was a displaced Nineteenth Century man. His office furniture testified to that, as did his furniture and life style at home. His office kneehole desk was a two hundred year old antique and he could barely tolerate a telephone and an electric lamp sitting upon it, let alone anything so modern and vulgar as a PC besmirching its hallowed green leather inset. So, if he needed to look at a computer screen, he had to go into Anthea's office and look at it there. This was a fair price to pay, in his opinion, for purity of style.

The frozen image appeared on the monitor screen. It showed a man, in a public pool, in the act of turning his head to take a breath, whilst swimming Free Style. The top, left side of his face was visible above the water, just the eye, part of the forehead and the cheek bone but Mycroft could see that it was, in deed, his brother. His hair was cut short and, being wet, slicked back off his face, but it was unmistakeably him. Anthea felt her chair shake almost imperceptibly as her boss placed a trembling hand on the back rest, and she heard a sharp intake of breath. She stood up and put a hand on his arm.

'Are you OK, sir?' she asked.

He closed his eyes and took a steadying breath, then looked at her with a tight smile.

'Thank you, Anthea. I'm fine. Where is this image from?'

Anthea bent and looked closely at the screen. In the bottom left hand corner, it identified the origin of the image as Carlisle Leisure Centre. She passed this information on to Mycroft. Just then, the phone on Anthea's desk rang, softly. She picked up the receiver, spoke, listened, then turned to Mycroft and said,

'DI Lestrade.'

Mycroft took the phone from her hand, she moved out of the way and he sat on her chair, as he announced himself to the other party.

ooOoo

John Watson was in the staff lounge at St Mary's, grabbing a cup of coffee between cases. He checked his mobile phone to see if he had missed any calls or texts while he had been working. There was a missed call from DS Cromer. He returned the call and announced himself.

'Oh, Dr Watson, so glad you rang. We've arrested the two suspects in the Dwarf case. We're letting them stew for a bit. But the reason I rang you is that we have this Jamie Eastridge's medical records but I was wondering if you would take a look, see if you think it's definitely the right bloke?'

'When will you be questioning them?'

'As soon as we are sure this is the right ID.'

John was not surprised that this unit had such a poor clear up rate. They seemed to need their hands held over everything.

'I finish here at 6 o'clock. I can be with you by half past. That OK?'

Cromer was more than delighted. John rang off.

He then rang Molly. She was in her lab, writing up a PM report. John asked if she had heard any news about Sherlock but the answer was negative. He related the gist of his two conversations with DS Cromer and Molly agreed that D Division probably should be renamed Z Division.

'So you don't fancy coming along to observe the interview, then?' John asked.

'Not really, John. William is not himself. He's so missing Sherlock and is quite clingy. I need to get home to be with him.'

John said he quite understood. He asked how Molly was coping herself.

'Mrs Hudson is staying with me. She is being absolutely brilliant. I don't know what I'd do without her.'

John reminded her to keep her chin up, sent his love to William and Mrs H and rang off. Next, he called Mary, to let her know he would be late home, apologised for neglecting her and promised to make it up to her, in no uncertain manner, at his first opportunity.

ooOoo

Sherlock had reached a cross-roads and he had to make a decision. He was standing alongside the B6071. If he turned left, he would eventually meet the A74(M) and take the fast track towards his goal but the risk was that he might be recognised and Mycroft's net would have caught him. If he kept walking due north, following the footpaths marked on his OS map, he would eventually meet the Firth of Forth and would be able to cross over into Fife and complete his journey to Arbroath. That could take weeks but he would be less likely to be recognised. Once the furore died down, everyone would forget about him. Except for Mycroft - he would never forget. He would keep looking until he found him.

Sherlock's head ached. He had only walked nine miles, yet he felt tired already. He was unsure, undecided; he could not make a decision. The longer he stood by this road on the outskirts of the village of Longtown, the more likely it became that someone would come by and recognise him. He made a decision. He would stick to his original plan and keep walking north. He would find somewhere undercover and get a good night's sleep. He would get an early start in the morning and make up for the time he lost today.

He moved back off the road and took out the map. The border with Scotland was only five miles further on and, just beyond it, was a wood with a stream running through. He would spend the night there. He followed the road a little further, to use the bridge to cross the river, then took the path toward the wood and the border.

ooOoo

Anthea probably knew Mycroft Holmes better than anyone. She certainly spent more time with him than anyone else. He never went anywhere without her, when he was working. She knew the man behind the myth. He was a very good boss, always polite and very appreciative of everything she did, never blamed her for things that were not her fault and never took his frustrations out on her. In return, she was totally loyal and completely discreet. She knew a lot of things about him that any newspaper or political enemy would pay handsomely to discover but the brave individual who would dare approach her with an offer too good to refuse had yet to be born.

She had been present the day he opened the result of William's paternity test. At first, she thought it must be really terrible news but then she realised it was the opposite. She had left him alone for a few minutes and then taken him a cup of his favourite tea. He had sent her a huge bouquet of flowers to show his appreciation. This latest crisis she knew was really taking its toll on the man but no one else would have even guessed, such was his consummate professionalism.

Walking with him now, through the main entrance to New Scotland Yard, he opened the door and stood back as she walked through. Always the gentleman. They walked into the incident room, DI Lestrade and Sgt Donovan came to meet them and Mycroft exchanged greetings with them.

'Where are we now, Inspector?' Mycroft enquired.

'We have four sightings and the CCTV footage. The local police have interviewed the three people who reported seeing him and it is a positive ID. He told the barber he was a captain in the Fifth Northumberland Fusiliers. He pawned his watch for a grand. Police did door to door on the High Street. He bought outdoor clothing and camping gear from the outward bound shop. He told the staff there that he was doing the Three Peaks Challenge, on a 'Stag' holiday with a bunch of mates. Frankly, I didn't even know he knew what a 'Stag' holiday was. Clear evidence of John Watson's influence. Some woman in the clothing store thinks he might have bought socks and boxers from there, but she's not sure and there's no CCTV in the shop so we can't check. The CCTV in the Leisure Centre has yielded this.'

DI Lestrade brought up a moving image, on Donovan's monitor, of a man carrying a back pack walking out of the centre doors. It was only a rear view and the figure was wearing a beanie hat but Mycroft was sure, from the walk alone, that it was his brother.

'What time was this footage taken?' asked Mycroft.

'Eleven-thirty this morning, five and a half hours ago,' replied Lestrade.

'Well, he's clearly not intending to extend his visit. Do we have any other sightings?'

'No. The local plods did a sweep of all the usual hang outs for the homeless and no one had seen him – except at the hostel. Some of their clients, when questioned, commented on his posh shoes. Nothing on the CCTV front and no call-in's from drivers or other travellers who might have come across him hitching. That could mean he's on foot, sticking to footpaths and avoiding civilisation but, having said that, the A74(M) runs right past the Leisure Centre. He could have walked straight out of there, picked up a ride and be in the Highlands by now. We don't think he is still in Carlisle, for sure,' Lestrade concluded.

Mycroft, the supreme strategist, paused for a moment of thought, then said,

'Let's not try to second guess him. We'll cover all the bases. Alert all the security services on the A74(M) corridor, north and south; review CCTV footage, on the road and the services. Contact all the youth hostels, mountain rescue, national park wardens, Air Ambulance, community policing, every organisation operating in the area, within a fifty mile radius of Carlisle. We need hard copy of that image, with the back pack and a description of the way he looks now – short hair, clothing. If there is no CCTV evidence to the contrary, I think we can assume he is travelling on foot, but let's keep an open mind for now. What is the terrain like around there?'

'We've looked at a contour map. It's hilly but undulating, not too challenging. Fairly open but with wooded areas,' Sally Donovan advised.

'He bought an OS map at the camping shop so he will have a reference for youth hostels and similar places to stay but I expect he'll be sleeping rough – won't want to expose himself to potential spotters,' Lestrade added.

'I think, out of interest, I'd like to have the local police helicopter scan the area with a heat sensitive camera, to check for anyone sleeping out in the landscape, once it gets dark. I expect there would be a number of hikers camping out at this time of year. It would be useful to know numbers and locations. Anyone camping in a particularly out of the way place might be significant,' Mycroft added, then looked extremely pensive. There was something nagging at the periphery of his awareness. He needed to mull that over.

'I'm concerned about his state of mind. Let everyone on the ground know that we just need to locate him at the moment. Once we have an idea where he is, then we'll discuss how to approach him. I don't want any premature confrontation. I'm not sure how he may react. Make that a priority, please, Inspector. No errors or misunderstandings.'

Instructions given, Mycroft and Anthea left the Yard and Mycroft instructed his chauffeur to take Anthea home and then take him to Molly's flat.

ooOoo

John Watson walked into the office of DS Cromer and was met with a big smile and a hearty hand-shake.

'Great timing, doc. We're just about to start questioning the bloke. We think he's the one most likely to turn Queen's Evidence. And we got the dental records checked out by the forensic dentist at Westminster. They match. So we know the stiff is definitely James Eastridge.'

John congratulated him, though for what, he was not sure and he really wished the man would stop referring the victim as 'the stiff'. Cromer showed John to an observation room and he took one of the four seats he found inside, all facing a large internal window. John knew that the other side of the glass would be mirrored so the occupants of the interrogation room would not be able to see him, so long as he did not stand close to the window or move around. He waited for a few moments, then a woman in uniform came into the observation room and introduced herself as PC Dawn Wilmot. She explained that her duty was to relay any messages that John may wish to pass on to the officers conducting the interview.

The door to the interview room opened and a man was led in by a PC in uniform, accompanied by another man, who John assumed was a solicitor. The two civilians took seats at the only table in the room, the PC stood by the door. A moment later, DS Cromer came in, with a second man, who John learned from the WPC, was DI Browning. The two detectives went through the ritual of writing on two tape cassettes and inserting them into a double cassette recorder, on the desk. John was rather amazed that they were still using this arcane method of recording interviews when there were more sophisticated methods available now, but that seemed to fit with the general 'unfit for purpose'-ness of the whole outfit that was D Division. Having introduced themselves and listed everyone present, the interview began.

The suspect, when he introduced himself as Freddie Hatcher, was revealed to John as the man who had called him on his phone yesterday, claiming to be James Eastridge. The first question was addressed to him by DS Cromer,

'Mr Hatcher, are you acquainted with a man named James Eastridge?'

His response surprised them all.

'Look, 'e's dead, alright? 'E died one night, 'ad one of 'is fits, while 'e was asleep. Josie found 'im next mornin' cos she were 'is carer, see, and she panicked, like, cos wiv 'im dead, she'd lose 'er job and she owed money, loads o' money. She phoned me, in a right state. I come round an' we fort, if we could pretend 'e weren't dead, she could pay 'er debts an' then we could let people know he died. So we pu' 'im in the chest freezer. An' Josie, she jus' carried on like as if 'e were alive. She 'ad all 'is bank details an' she 'ad Power ov Attorney over 'is finances, cos 'e din't 'av no one else an' she used to get 'is Benefi' an' do all 'is shoppin' cos, even though he go' tha' mobili'y scoo'er, 'e din't dare ride it, case 'e 'ad a fit so 'e never went art.'

Mr Hatcher paused, perhaps for breath, after that long and detailed confession.

'So how did he finish up under the bridge in the park?' asked a stunned DS Cromer, who was probably thinking this was the easiest collar he had ever made.

'Ah, well, ya see, me an' Josie, we went away, din't we, fur an 'oliday. An', whilst we wuz away, there wuz a power cut at the bungalow an' Jamie, well, he defrosted, din't 'e. So, when we come back, he were all decomposin' an' the 'ole place stunk, dinit. So we 'ad to get rid. I put 'im in a garden sack and took 'im to the park, over me shoulder, like, cos 'e din't weigh nuffin, bless 'im. An' I chucked 'in in the river bu' wha' I din't realize were it were low tide an' the river bank were dry so he lay there until tha' dog found 'im.'

Freddie Hatcher then sat back in his chair, satisfied that he had given a full and frank account of the whole series of events.

So, the murder mystery was revealed to be a benefits scam. John Watson could not help being struck by the irony that the case that had set his best friend, Sherlock Holmes, on his current course of action had been nothing more than an accidental death that had been exploited by a couple of half-wits for personal gain. John got up from his seat, nodded to the WPC and walked out of the room and out of the Yard, feeling bitter and frustrated and wondering what Sherlock would have made of it all, had it not been for the fact that he was a missing person and officially classified as a vulnerable adult, just like poor Jamie Eastridge.

ooOoo


	14. Chapter 14

**Disclaimer – I don't own the characters. They belong to ACD, MG and SM and the BBC. No one pays me to do this, I do it for love.**

**Chapter Thirteen**

As John stepped out through the main door of the Yard, he took out his phone to ring and update Molly, only to find that he'd had a 'missed call' from her, whilst his phone had been switched off. He rang her back.

'Hi, Moll, what can I do?' he asked.

'Could you come over, John? Mycroft's here and he has some news.'

'I'm on my way,' he replied and hailed a cab.

When he arrived at Molly's flat, Mycroft was performing the bedtime honours for William, so Molly offered John a glass of wine and poured one for herself, one for Mrs Hudson, who was just finishing loading the dishwasher, and one for Mycroft, too.

'Any idea what the news is?' John enquired.

'None at all. Mycroft would never talk about such things in front of William. He is confused enough. Whenever Sherlock has been absent in the past, he's always sent a text and sometimes even phoned at bedtime, to say goodnight. This is the first time he hasn't done that and William is a bright child. He knows something is not right. He asked me today if Daddy was in the hospital like Mummy was and could we go to see him. I told him Daddy had to go away somewhere where he couldn't take his phone. I couldn't say he'll be back soon because, well, I just don't know that and you can't lie to a child. They'll never believe you again, if you do.'

In a vain attempt to take her mind off things, John took the opportunity to tell Molly about the revelations concerning the Dwarf case.

'Benefit Fraud? Is that all it was? Well, I don't mean that's not important but all the same. How frustrating! Still, it's solved now. Sherlock need never think of it again, if he comes back.'

'WHEN he comes back,' John corrected.

'I hope it's 'when', John, I do hope so.'

At that point, Mycroft emerged from the direction of the bedrooms and gratefully accepted his glass of wine. Settling himself on the sofa, he related, to the assembled friends, the events of the day with regard to the hunt for Sherlock. After he had finished, they all sat for a moment, thinking their own thoughts, saying nothing. Mycroft was the first to speak.

'I intend to go to Carlisle, tonight. I just have a feeling that he is still in the area. I feel sure that, with the newspaper coverage and the CCTV Fax-Rex software, we would have heard something, if he was travelling by any means other than on foot. My gut instinct is telling me that he has not gone far. I've arranged to be taken by helicopter from the City Airport at nine-thirty this evening. I was wondering if any of you would like to come, too, being his closest friends.'

They all looked at Molly.

'Mycroft, much as I would like to come, I really cannot. William needs me here. I think, if any one goes, it should be John.' She turned to look at him.

'John, he trusts you more than anyone. If anybody can persuade him to come back, it's you.'

John looked both flattered and embarrassed at the same time.

'I think Molly's right,' Mrs Hudson spoke out. 'When a man has got himself in a state, he wants his mates around him, someone to give him support without getting all emotional.'

This time, everyone looked at John.

'Well, obviously, I would like nothing better than to go. I'll have to ring work so that they can get some cover in and my wife will probably divorce me – actually, she probably thinks we're divorced already, it's been so long since she saw me – but, yes, Mycroft, I would like to go with you to Cumbria.'

So it was settled. Mycroft and John left, to pack an over-night bag and get to the airport in time for the flight.

Molly and Mrs H sat in the sitting room, sipping their wine and mulling over the news that Mycroft had brought, wondering what on earth was going on in Sherlock's head to make him do all this.

'It's a though he has regressed back to when he was away,' Molly conjectured. 'He's gone back to that mind-set, where he has to stay hidden, avoid capture, hide his true identity. But who or what does he think he's hiding from? And what does he think will happen if he is caught? That's what worries me. If he thinks something terrible will happen, would he be prepared to do anything – anything at all – to evade capture?'

'Don't think like that, Molly,' Mrs Hudson chided.

'No, I have to, Mrs H,' Molly countered. 'That's why I said I wouldn't go to Cumbria. You didn't see him the night he nearly strangled me. He was absolutely appalled that he could have been capable of such a thing, even though he didn't know he was doing it. It really scared him, to be so out of control. I just feel that he has done this to protect William and perhaps me too. Whatever it is that he remembered, it has made him afraid to be around us so he is trying to put as much distance between him and us as possible. If I were to go there, he would just run even further and, if he were cornered, I think he might do something drastic. So, no, William and I must stay here and wait for him to come to us. When or if he's ready.'

ooOoo

By the time Sherlock reached the wood, it was already dark, although the full moon in the clear sky provided a surprising amount of light, out in the open. This did not, however, penetrate the canopy of the wood. He took out the torch he had taken from the game keeper's land rover and used this to help him find a suitable spot to spend the night. Working his way into the very heart of the wood, he found a small clearing where a tree had blown down quite recently, so the undergrowth had not yet grown up around it. This meant that the moonlight was able to illuminate the space, thus saving on his torch batteries.

He cleared a space of fallen twigs and other bulky items, like rocks and pine cones, unrolled his ground sheet and spread it on the woodland floor. Then he took out his sleeping bag and unrolled it on top of the ground sheet. He sat on the sleeping bag and drank from his water bottle. His head ache had worsened and he wished he had thought to buy some Paracetamol or something similar but he was hardly ever ill, so it had not occurred that he might need such a thing. He hoped a good night's sleep would cure it.

He was exceptionally tired. The last few miles had been hard work. His shoulders and back ached from the unaccustomed weight of the back pack, even though there was hardly anything in it; his feet were a bit sore from the new hiking boots, despite the precaution of two pairs of socks; his legs ached from walking on the uneven surfaces of the footpaths. He must be getting soft, he thought. Been living in the city too long. As he nibbled some Kendal Mint Cake, he reminded himself that he had hiked for two weeks through the Amazon Jungle – but then he had had help, lots of help. His mind was, inevitably and irresistibly, drawn back to Rio.

That first night, in the favela, was a steep learning curve for Sherlock. Having brought him back to his home and invited him in, the boy introduced himself.

'_Meu nome e Rocky'_ he said, pointing to his chest. '_Como Rocky Bilbau, em nos_ _filmes_' and he did the classic 'Rocky' pose, fists raised, bouncing on the spot, then laughed, heartily, the young girl laughing, too. Sherlock could not help smiling at this, also.

'_Qual e o seu nome?_' he asked, pointing at Sherlock. He considered how much he could trust this boy and concluded that, so far, he had given him every reason to trust him, implicitly.

'_Meu nome e Holmes_,' he replied, recycling the boy's introductory sentence.

'_Ola, Holmes, tenho o prazer conhece-lo_,' replied the boy and held out his hand. Sherlock took it and shook it, saying,

'_Ola, Rocky, tenho o prazer conhece-lo,_ too' feeling fairly sure that he had just said he was pleased to meet him.

The boy invited him to sit down on a pile of rugs that seemed to serve as furniture and the girl brought him a cup of water, for which he said,

'_Obrigardo_,' which he remembered from school but which he had heard said a lot in the bar and restaurant, earlier in the day. And he was hugely grateful for that cup of water, having been well and truly dehydrated from all the events of the past twelve hours.

The next couple of hours he spent being introduced to the various members of this 'family' of street children, for a family is what they were, related not by blood but by circumstance. This group of twelve young people had formed an alliance for the mutual benefit and protection of all and, as Sherlock watched them go about their everyday business, he was struck by the degree of organisation and co-operation within the group. They all had their individual roles and responsibilities.

The girls made a cooking fire, out in the yard, and began to prepare an evening meal. Some arrived with metal cans or plastic drums, filled with water, that they had carried god knows how far, from god knows what source, and began washing clothes or washing themselves or washing each other. When the boys came home, they brought fire wood, food items, tools and other household equipment that they had scavenged during the day. They all greeted him, solemnly, and shook his hand. Before they gathered to eat, he was co-opted, by one of the girls, to spread the rugs out on the floor so they could all sit down together. Rocky, his rescuer, said a heartfelt grace, before they all began eating, and Sherlock, for perhaps the first time ever, knew what it meant to be truly thankful for a meal.

After the meal was over, the girls cleared away and washed the dishes and cooking pots, then sat outside, in the moonlight, talking and laughing and braiding each other's hair, whilst the boys sat inside and one of their number produced an expertly rolled cigarette. This was lit and passed around the group, including Sherlock, who took it gratefully, having never needed a cigarette so much in his life. He took a deep toke and then collapsed in fits of coughing, much to the hilarity of the rest of the group – even the girls looked in to see what the joke was and joined in. Once he got over his coughing fit, Sherlock added his baritone chuckle to the mix. He would know next time that this tobacco was not finest golden Virginia, but a course local variety, so to take a lighter drag.

Later in the evening, he got the opportunity to speak to Rocky and asked him, in pigeon Portuguese, if the boy could take him to the British Consulate General. Rocky rubbed his chin and gave the request much thought, then said,

'_Eu vou dar umaolhada amanha_,' with accompanying gestures, giving Sherlock to understand that he would do something about it tomorrow.

Not long after this conversation, the girls all came inside and the family settled down for the night, curling up on the rugs like a litter of pups in a basket. Sherlock was invited to sleep on a rug placed along the back wall of the shack, in deference to his exceptional height - he was head and shoulders taller than any of the children – so that he could stretch out.

With his memories of the first night with the street children still running through his mind, Sherlock took the torch and his water bottle and walked through the wood towards the sound of running water, to find the stream. He knelt on the bank and scooped the cold, fresh water onto his face, gasping involuntarily at the iciness of the water's touch. He reached into his pocket and took out the Ecover toothpaste and brush. He could do without a lot of things but oral hygiene was not one of them. Having brushed his teeth, he refilled the water bottle, skimming the surface of the running water, hoping that he did not find the bottle full of water beetles in the morning, then walked off, at an angle to the stream, to find a suitable place to establish a latrine, before returning to the moonlit clearing.

He stripped down to his thermal leggings and tee-shirt, packing his outer garments in the backpack for the night, then crawled into his Arctic bag and tried to relax enough to sleep. His head ache was no better and he was feeling a little febrile. He hoped he hadn't picked up a bug from somewhere. This was no time to be ill, he thought. Being here in this wood, though completely different in so many ways, brought his Brazilian experience into sharp focus. The natural darkness, alleviated only by moonlight was one similarity, the natural sounds of the wind, the running water and the local wildlife was another.

Having been rescued and protected by the street children, Sherlock had sworn that, if he actually got out of Rio alive, he would do something to help them – not just this group but all the street children of Rio de Janeiro. After all, he was from a wealthy family. He had the means. But that was before….before... He clapped his hands to his head and tried to shut out the images of that night, the night he had left Rio and buried all recollection of ever having been there as deeply as he could.

ooOoo

Had he been asleep? He wasn't sure. He'd been remembering that night – or had he been dreaming about it? He couldn't really tell the difference any more. But one thing he was sure of, he could hear the sound of the helicopter hovering above the wood and he knew what that meant. He was instantly wide awake, as he sucked his head and arms into the Arctic sleeping bag and pulled the opening closed, holding it tight shut with both hands, above his head. He could still hear the chopper, moving in a spiral pattern above the wood, scanning with its heat sensitive camera, looking for him.

How did they know? Had he been seen? Had someone recognised him? He had not seen a soul, so how? It was pointless to speculate. He must just face the fact that someone had seen him and given him away. He lay as still as possible, praying that the insulation of the Arctic sleeping bag would mask his body heat from the all-seeing eye of the camera, above. He heard the chopper passing over again and wondered if they had a fix on him and if, even now, there were police or even army personnel closing in.

He listened to the sound of the helicopter's engines, trying to calm his breathing, as though even that might give him away. The sound of the chopper was fading, moving round, spiralling away in a gradually widening circle. Maybe they hadn't spotted him, then, and were still scanning, still hunting. He couldn't take the risk. As soon as the noise of the chopper had faded away, he wriggled out of the sleeping bag and, dragging his clothes out of the back pack, began pulling them on. In the midst of all this frantic activity, his brain was whirring: hypothesising, analysing, amending, reassessing and, at last, reaching the conclusion that he had no other choice.

It was a make or break decision, one from which there could be no turning back. He needed a vehicle and he thought he knew exactly where he would find one.

ooOoo

The pilot and co-pilot of the police helicopter completed their spiral sweep of the countryside surrounding Carlisle. They hadn't been paying too much attention to what the heat sensitive camera was recording. Their brief was to scan the area then return to base and submit the material for analysis. They had spotted the odd sheep and a few mysterious looking blobs but their attentions had been more focused on the co-pilot's weekend activities and less on the camera's view finder. Having completed the scan, they peeled off and returned to base.

ooOoo

Sherlock approached the car park of the village pub that he had passed earlier. There had been one or two vehicles parked there then, now it was full to capacity. He slipped in between the hedge boundary and the row of vehicles nearest to the road and began to make his way along the row, trying the door handles. At last, he found one that yielded. It was a Land Rover Discovery, six years old. That would do fine. He didn't want to attract unnecessary attention. Hot wiring this one would be slightly more complicated than the staff car but he had the screwdriver from the game keeper's land rover. He reached under the steering wheel and popped the bonnet.

ooOoo

Mycroft's chauffeur carried both John's and Mycroft's bag to the heliport check-in desk at London City Airport. The flight attendant greeted Mycroft with the respect and reverence a man of his status commanded, just by being who he was. John received the same treatment, gifted by association, as he thought of it. They were fast-tracked through check-in and escorted to a First Class departure lounge, complete with attendant waiters, who hovered, ready to perform one's every bidding. John, who had been on his feet since seven o'clock that morning, asked for a strong black coffee. Mycroft declined everything, with a slightly condescending wave of his hand. After a wait of about fifteen minutes, they were invited to board, by a very attractive young woman in company livery.

ooOoo

Sherlock arrived at the self-same crossroad he had approached earlier in the day but this time, there was no indecision. He knew exactly where he was going. He turned right and headed for the A74(M), accelerating away, his rear tyres spraying the loose gravel in his wake. Even as he did this, the police helicopter crew downloaded the camera's recordings into the hard drive of the Carlisle police IT network and then shut everything down and repaired to the staff canteen for a coffee and a sandwich. And John and Mycroft's helicopter took off from the London City Airport and, rising above the iconic London skyline, turned north-west and flew over the city.

ooOoo


	15. Chapter 15

**Disclaimer – I don't own the characters. They belong to ACD, MG and SM and the BBC. No one pays me to do this, I do it for love.**

**Chapter Fourteen**

The owner of the Land Rover Discovery stood in the pub car park, staring at the empty space where his car should have been, wondering whether he had left it somewhere else. But, no, he was sure he had left it here. Having recovered from the shock and disbelief, he turned and walked back into the pub, to report the theft and to ask the landlord to check the CCTV footage, to see who took it.

ooOoo

Greg Lestrade was wondering just when his current shift at the Yard might end. He had been on duty for thirty hours already and there was no end in sight. He really was his own worst enemy, he thought. He could not contemplate relinquishing the role of co-ordinator of this search for his friend and colleague – yes, he did think of Sherlock as a valued and respected colleague – to anyone else. He had sent Sally Donovan home an hour ago and she had left reluctantly, not necessarily because of concern for Sherlock – it was well known that the two had clashed on many occasions – but out of loyalty to him and he appreciate that. She was a good officer and a great asset to the department. The fact was, he really did not trust anyone else to handle the search properly. Did that make him a control freak? So live with it, he thought.

'Sir?' A voice at his elbow broke into his reverie and he jumped, startled by the PC who was standing right next to him.

'Sorry, sir, I didn't mean to make you jump. I think you must have dropped off,' the PC apologised. Lestrade shook himself and rubbed his face with his hands.

'What's up, Douglas?' he asked the flustered young man.

'We've had a report of a stolen vehicle from a village pub car park, near Carlisle. The local wooden tops have CCTV footage they say shows the Missing Person taking the car.'

Lestrade was instantly awake.

'Have they sent us the image?' he asked, turning to his pc monitor.

'Should be coming through any minute. It's not been run through Fax-Rex yet but they say they're certain it's him. There it is, sir,' this last comment made as the emailed image downloaded onto the Met's network and showed up on Lestrade's screen.

It was a fairly grainy moving image of a man closing the bonnet of a Land Rover Discovery, walking round to the driver's door and getting in. Moments later, the car could be seen reversing out of its space and driving out of shot. As it reversed out, the registration number was clearly visible. Greg Lestrade was pretty sure it was Sherlock, too, but he told the PC to run it through the software, just to make certain. He then turned to another officer and said,

'Get on to Transport Police for the M74, give them that reg. number and tell them to locate and track that vehicle, using the motorway cameras. Tell them NOT to approach the vehicle, NOT to follow it, except on the camera and just to let it go where ever it goes, OK? And tell them that these instructions come direct from the Home Office. Anyone who disobeys these instructions will be up for a disciplinary – even the Police Commissioner. Got that?'

The officer nodded and picked up his phone receiver.

Lestrade was aware that Mycroft Holmes was in flight from London to Carlisle and, therefore, effectively incommunicado – although, in an emergency, it would be possible to get a patch through via air traffic control, but that was for dire emergencies only. Holmes was one hour into a two hour flight, so Lestrade had Power of Attorney at the moment and Mycroft's instructions had been crystal clear. Under no circumstances was Sherlock to be approached. They must just watch him and see where he goes. Douglas was back with the Fax-Rex results.

'It's a match, sir. It's definitely him.'

'Thank God,' breathed the DI. 'At least we know where he is now. Right, PC Douglas, get onto the Transport CCTV feed and see if you can get a facial from one of the motorway bridge cameras, just so we can verify that he is still driving the car. I wouldn't put it past him getting one of his Homeless Network to drive it as a decoy. Let's be certain we're following the right man, OK? Oh, and Douglas, when you got a minute, make me a coffee, will you?'

He sat back down at his desk and tapped his fingers on his chin.

'Just don't do anything stupid, Sherlock, that might draw attention to yourself, OK? No speeding, no erratic driving; don't give anyone any reason to try and stop you,' he prayed, silently.

ooOoo

Sherlock had been driving for about an hour, very steadily, just on the speed limit. He had no desire to draw unnecessary attention to himself. He wondered whether the car had been reported missing yet. In different circumstances, he probably would have dumped it by now but he did not have time to waste looking for another vehicle. He knew that, once the owner reported the theft, the police would be scanning the traffic cameras for a sighting. He knew they had cameras on all the motorway bridges, so he kept the sun visor down, in an effort to shield his face from them, though, to be frank, he was past caring. He knew this was a last ditch attempt to get to his goal. What would be would be.

He'd been in worse situations and at least this was his home turf. He could manage on his own, did not have to involve any one else. And, once more, his brain had steered him, inexorably, round to his time in Rio. The memories were awakened now and they demanded to be heard.

Rocky and the other boys went off the next morning, just like normal kids went off to school or adults went off to work, except these boys went off to scavenge, to stand at road junctions and clean drivers' wind shields and hope to get paid for doing it, and to do other types of work, such as that which Sherlock had been made painfully aware of, on his trip to the shack on the previous night. He guessed that quite a few of these children had been involved in the sex industry. The local police seemed to turn a blind eye but perhaps this was because they profited from the trade themselves, through bribery and kick-backs.

He also guessed that some of these children were used as mules to transport drugs into the city from the processing plants that turned the raw opium into heroin, cocaine and other opiates. Left alone, that first day with only Maria, the girl who had greeted Rocky on their arrival yesterday, for company, he had lots of time to think and reflect on his own drug use. For the first time, he actually felt guilty for being part of a system that created a demand for the products that these children had to handle in order simply to survive. He'd stopped using for a number of reasons but none as compelling as this one. For every hit he had ever taken, he now saw a Rocky or a Maria being exploited in order to service his compulsion. He loathed his vanity.

Having gotten over her shyness of the previous evening, Maria set about involving Sherlock in the daily chores of the shack. Rocky, before he left, had informed Sherlock, in emphatic terms, that he must stay inside and not be seen by anyone, so even going out into the yard was forbidden. So Maria gave him indoor jobs to do, like gathering up and shaking the mats and then stacking them up again in the corner and then sweeping the hard dirt floor. She then brought some of the outdoor work indoors, like washing, peeling and chopping the vegetables. She was impressed at Sherlock's skill in that department, though surprised that she had to show him how to chop the vegetables without putting them on the ground. She showed him how to slice towards his thumb but to stop short of actually slicing the digit itself. There were a few close calls. And whilst they worked, she chattered and he listened.

He knew that Portuguese was a Romance language and, therefore, had features in common with other Romance languages, including similarities of vocabulary and syntax. Listening to the children talk the night before had stimulated the process in his brain that assimilated languages and, as he listened to this girl and noted her gestural and environmental cues, his awareness of the spoken words began to sublimate into understanding.

Sherlock was anxious for Rocky to come home, to find out whether he would be taking him to the British Consulate. As evening approached and each of the children returned to the shack, Sherlock looked up, hopefully, until Rocky actually did arrive. He came straight in to speak to Sherlock. The news was not good. He had been to the Consulate and had seen men waiting outside, staking it out, waiting for someone to arrive. Rocky thought that someone might be Sherlock.

'You cannot go there, Holmes. You will not get in the door. They will kill you.' Rocky explained, impressed by Sherlock's increasing ability to understand him.

'Could you take a message for me?' Sherlock asked, in clumsy Portuguese.

'Difficult,' replied the boy. 'I have no business there. They would be suspicious.' Seeing the disappointment on Sherlock's face, the boy patted his arm.

'Wait a day or two. Maybe they go away. Then we try again, yes?'

'Yes, thank you,' Sherlock replied. He could do worse than stay here for a day or two, as the guest of these charming children, gaining a rare and precious insight into their lives. He could see in their broad, flat faces and prominent, almost horizontal cheekbones, the evidence of their ancestry in the indigenous people of Brazil. And, by a curious twist of fate, these children were living a similar hunter-gatherer subsistence to that of their ancient forebears. He was painfully aware that these children and the others like them were looked upon in some quarters as vermin, feral children, who could be periodically rounded up and disposed of - history repeating itself, by the will of the modern conquistadors. He wondered how anyone could do such a thing. He could not imagine it.

Sherlock saw the road signs indicating the exit he needed to take in order to transfer from the M74 to the M8, towards the Forth Road Bridge, which was his gateway to Fife and to possible freedom. He was happy to have something less monotonous than straight-forward motorway driving to occupy his mind and keep his thoughts from straying to Rio. He indicated and took the exit.

ooOoo

Greg Lestrade had been following Sherlock's progress on the traffic cameras and the big screen was now plotting his route. Greg saw him take the exit from the M74 and onto the A725. This was a surprise. He had assumed he was heading for Glasgow but now he was turning off. He watched with interest as the car made the necessary manoeuvres and joined the M8, driving east, toward Edinburgh. He really wanted to give this information to Mycroft but did not know if it was important enough to use the patch. Suddenly, he sat up straight and very nearly clapped his hand to his head in amazement. Why didn't he think of that before? Taking out his mobile phone, he texted John Watson and gave him all the information about Sherlock's theft of the car and his current status, being tracked by the traffic camera system.

ooOoo

In the helicopter, John felt his phone vibrate in his breast pocket. He took it out and read the text, then showed it to Mycroft. They were both wearing headsets but were aware that everything they said could also be heard by the pilot and co-pilot, through their head sets. Mycroft looked at the message for some time then his expression suddenly changed to one of surprise, alarm or possibly realisation and, taking out his phone, he wrote text then showed it to John.

'I think I know where he is going.'

John looked at him inquiringly. Mycroft texted again,

'It's a long story. We need to change our destination.'

Mycroft pressed the intercom button on his headset and spoke to the pilot, requesting he apply to air traffic control for a change of route. Whilst the pilot looked into that, Mycroft wrote a text on John's phone and sent it back to Lestrade. It read,

'I know where he is going. Let him go there. We can be waiting for him when he arrives.'

He pressed 'send' and gave John his phone back. The pilot then said that the new flight plan was approved and they veered North-East and headed toward Arbroath.

ooOoo

Back at the Yard, in the incident room, Greg Lestrade sent out the directive to all police forces along the route, between Sherlock's current position and Arbroath, to allow him to proceed, unimpeded to his destination. He backed this up with Mycroft's government seal. He then sat back in his chair, feeling utterly drained, and dared to think this might soon be brought to a satisfactory conclusion.

ooOoo

Sherlock was feeling the effects of his long and stressful day. His headache was beyond pain now and had entered the realms of legend. He had the air conditioning on and blowing full power into his face, to keep him alert, and he blinked repeatedly keep his eyes in focus. Up ahead, he could see the lights of the Forth Road Bridge. Once he was over the bridge, maybe he could stop and have a rest. He was surprised that he had come this far without any incident. His luck must be changing. It was about time. If only luck had been with him, back in Rio. His mind took him, obsessively, back to that place and time that it had kept under close guard for so long.

The fifth night, when Rocky came home, he looked grave. After five days of total submersion in Portuguese, Sherlock was not only speaking in the language, he was thinking in it.

'Holmes, you have some very powerful enemies,' Rocky had greeted him with this pronouncement.

'What do you mean?' Sherlock asked.

'Someone seriously wants you dead. They have employed a hit man who is notorious in my country. He is a legend. Some people say he is not even human. He can track his quarry through city streets or jungle paths, it is all the same to him. He is the silent killer, who never fails in his mission. This is serious. You need to escape. We need to get you away from here.'

Sherlock was shocked to his core by the boy's words. They sounded so melodramatic but he could see by the look in Rocky's eyes that he was totally serious.

'Who is this hit man?' he asked.

'_Ele e conhecido como Pequeno Demonio' _said Rocky.

'He is known as Little Demon,' Sherlock heard.

'He is an Indian, one of the Uncontacted, once, but now he moves between the forest and the city, they are both the same to him and his skill in the art of killing is known to everyone. You are in terrible danger.'

Sherlock thought for a moment then said,

'I must go then. I can't risk him coming here. It would put all of you in danger, too, and I can't allow that to happen.'

'Relax, English,' Rocky reassured him. 'We have a plan. We know some of the Uncontacted who have begun to come into the city to look for food and work. I met with some of them today. They have promised to take you out of here. They know the forest better than anyone. They will take you to safety.'

Sherlock was completely amazed at the way Rocky delivered this news. It was as though this was something perfectly normal – hit men with an almost supernatural ability to track and kill, Uncontacted people, passing from an ancient way of life into modern civilisation and back again, simply by crossing a road. It was difficult to comprehend and it increased his admiration no end for this boy of, what, twelve years of age, who ran this family with the wisdom and courage of a grown man.

'How old are you, Rocky?' Sherlock asked.

'I don't know, Holmes, but I bet I am older than you think. My people are small people. We don't grow up like trees, not like your people. We are more like bushes,' Rocky joked and then laughed his infectious laugh that reminded Sherlock of John Watson, his other friend of small stature and huge heart.

The thought of John Watson jolted Sherlock back into the present and he saw that he was only a few short miles from the Forth Road Bridge. He needed to keep his concentration on his driving. It was late and there were not many cars on the road but it would be foolish to run into one now, when he was so close to his final destination. He wiped, from his brow, the sweat that was threatening to trickle into his eyes. He needed to focus.

ooOoo

In Fife, the local police force had been watching, with interest, the progress of this car that was known to be stolen and driven by a vulnerable adult, as it approached closer and closer to their area of jurisdiction. Inspector Macaleish was a proud Scotsman who looked forward to the day when Scotland would be free from the Government in London and would have their own government in Edinburgh.

He was fed up with having to do the bidding of the Sassenachs south of the border and he was well pissed off with this jumped up DI from Scotland Yard - _Scotland_ Yard, mind you – with a foreign French name, telling him what to do on his own patch. That maniac was not going to drive willy-nilly through his neighbourhood. As soon as that car was on the bridge, Inspector Macaleish had a road block waiting to move into position and block its exit at North Queensferry and the devil take the man who tried to stop him!

ooOoo


	16. Chapter 16

**Disclaimer – I don't own the characters. They belong to ACD, MG and SM and the BBC. No one pays me to do this, I do it for love.**

**Thanks also to The Bard of Avon for lending me his beautiful words.**

**Chapter Fifteen**

The helicopter carrying John and Mycroft was approaching the Firth of Forth, that giant inland arm of the North Sea that bit deep into the east side of Britain, creating the neck on which sat the head of 'this precious stone set in the silver sea'. As the chopper banked to the left, John and Mycroft were treated to a view of the Forth Road Bridge which, at 2.5 kilometres in length, including the viaducts at both ends and the triple span, it was the longest suspension bridge outside of the USA. Sadly, it had almost outlived its usefulness and its successor was in the process of being built, alongside. But it still looked magnificent, especially now, in the dark, lit up like a modern cathedral, a memorial to the industrial glory of Great Britain's recent past. Admiring the poignant beauty of the edifice, Mycroft's eye was drawn to a cluster of flashing lights at the northern end of the bridge. He spoke to the pilot.

'What's going on down there?'

'It looks like a road block, sir,' came the pilot's reply. John and Mycroft looked at one another in horror.

'Patch me through to Scotland Yard, right now!' bellowed Mycroft.

In the incident room, Greg Lestrade's phone rang and he reached out and picked it up, announcing himself.

'Lestrade, what the hell is going on the Forth Road Bridge? Someone has set a road block on the north end!'

'What the fuck?' shouted the DI. 'Let me get back to you,' he snapped and closed the connection. All hell broke loose in the incident room as Lestrade yelled orders at the assembled crew and all the officers jumped to expedite those orders.

ooOoo

The Forth Road Bridge is a relatively flat bridge, so Sherlock was able to see, well before he reached the central span, the flashing blue and red lights of the police cars that had positioned themselves at the far end of the bridge and were filtering the traffic ahead of him through the gap in between them. He had no doubt that they were there for him and that they would not be allowing him to pass through that gap. The realisation that he had driven straight into a trap hit him like a physical blow. His cover was clearly blown. They knew he was there. There was no point trying to bluff his way through.

He flicked on the hazard warning lights of the Discovery and, pulling in to the side, to let other traffic pass, he brought the car to stop, put the gear box in neutral and put the hand brake on. He leaned forward to rest his forehead on the steering wheel, eyes closed, utterly defeated. Why had Mycroft done this? And so cruelly, to let him get so far that he could almost smell freedom, before he sprung his cruel trap. What had he ever done to his brother that he should want to thwart him in this way, crush him, destroy him, annihilate him?

He raised his head and looked in the rear view mirror. There was a steady trickle of traffic spilling across the bridge, making any notion of trying to turn and escape back south inconceivable. No doubt there were police cars waiting to close that trap, too, should he show any sign of attempting to break out that way. He leant back on the head rest and tried to block out the intense pain between and behind his eyes. The pain pulsed in his temples. He was exhausted.

ooOoo

Above the bridge, at Mycroft's behest, the helicopter turned to circle back over the Firth. John, peering down, saw the Discovery pull in to the side of the road.

'He's there, look. He's stopped,' he pointed out. 'Mycroft, can they set me down? I could run across the bridge to him, talk to him.'

Mycroft put the question to the pilot.

'We would need to ask permission to land,' replied the pilot, who was getting far more than he bargained for with this way less than routine flight.

'What if it's an emergency?' Mycroft declared, in a manner that made it clear this was not an enquiry.

The pilot spoke to air traffic control.

'We have an emergency and will be making an unscheduled landing at…..' and went on to give the co-ordinates of their position.

The helicopter banked around and followed the line of the bridge back towards South Queensferry, heading for the green open space just beyond the defunct toll booths, no longer in use since 2008. As it dropped toward the ground, John removed his head set and held his hand poised over the release point for his seat harness.

Even as the chopper settled on the ground, he hit the harness release, opened the door and jumped out, stooping as he ran to clear the drooping blades, heading for the pedestrian access to the bridge. He had a fair way to run, more than a kilometre, and it suddenly occurred to him how disgustingly unfit he was. He really should start running regularly, he thought as he pounded up the slope of the bridge approach.

Back in the chopper, Mycroft asked to be patched through to Lestrade again. When Greg answered, Mycroft interrupted him and spoke urgently.

'Don't bother getting the road block removed. We have landed and John is on the bridge, approaching on foot. He's going to try to talk him round. Do you have access to local services?'

Lestrade said he did.

'Send an ambulance to the south end of the bridge. Tell it to meet with me just past the toll booths. I'll be easy to spot, I think, standing next to a helicopter. And get some police here to stop all these cars going onto the bridge. This bridge is to be closed to traffic on the northbound side.'

ooOoo

Sherlock sat watching the cars passing him, moving toward the North Queensferry exit, wondering what the next move might be. Was he going to just sit here and let them come and get him? Was he hell. Had he sat in the lab at St Bart's and let Moriarty just come for him? Had he sat in the shack in the favela and let the Little Demon just come for him? So no way was he going to sit here in this stolen car and let Mycroft's minions come and take him.

He slid over into the passenger seat of the Discovery and opened the passenger side door, swung his legs out and put his feet onto the road. There was a low barrier between the road and the cycle/footpath that bounded the carriageway. He just needed to step over it to gain access to the parapet. Just a short step.

He put his hand in his jacket pocket and pulled out Arthur's phone. When he took it from the unconscious soldier nurse, he had not known why. He couldn't use it, as it could be traced and tracked, so he had kept it switched off but, even when he abandoned his back pack and all his other possession in the wood, he had remembered to bring the phone. Was that for this eventuality? Had he known all along that it would come to this? He switched on the phone. He sat watching the screen as it powered up and then settled into 'ready' mode. The first number he tapped in, from memory, was John's mobile number. Then he typed,

'Goodbye John, SH,' and pressed send.

The second number he tapped in was Molly's number. Then he typed,

'Tell William I love him. Love you too, S,' and pressed 'send' then dropped the phone on the seat of the car and pushed himself upright, slamming the car door behind him.

ooOoo

Running along the footpath, alongside the northbound carriageway of the bridge, 150 metres above the water, John saw the vehicle door open and then, several moments later, Sherlock lurch out of the car and fall, rather than climb over the barrier that separated the foot path from the traffic. He landed in a heap on the pavement and didn't get up straight away. When he did eventually rise, he staggered, very unsteadily, across the footpath and turned to lean against the parapet that overlooked the water of the Firth, far below.

The traffic had stopped passing on this side of the bridge so, although it continued to flow on the southbound side, it seemed strangely distant and muted. John was into his stride now, running evenly, the practiced lope of an infantryman. There was still quite a distance to cover and he didn't want to call out incase he startled his friend into doing something rash. John was already concerned that Sherlock was contemplating a repeat performance of his swan dive from the roof of St Bart's but, this time, without the security of a Molly Hooper to help him fake it. But, right now, from what John could see, he was having trouble staying upright, let alone climbing the parapet in order to hurl himself off. John sincerely hoped that situation remained stable.

ooOoo

Back in her flat, in London, Molly was in her bathroom, getting ready for bed, when she heard the text alert on her mobile phone chirp, as it lay on her bedside cabinet. She walked through into the bedroom, picked up the phone and saw it was from a number not known to her. She opened the text and read it. She gasped, her hand rising to her mouth as she read the text again. Then, switching over to Phone mode, she speed dialled Mycroft's number. He answered at once. Without waiting for him to speak, she blurted,

'Mycroft, he's sent me a text. It says 'Tell William I love him. Love you too.' What's happening, Mycroft? Where is he?'

Mycroft took a deep breath and began to explain the situation to Molly.

ooOoo

Sherlock's head was swimming. He knew he needed to get over the parapet but he could barely stand, let alone climb over the barrier, which was chest height to him. He knew his time to escape was running out. They would come for him soon and then that would be an end to his bid for freedom. He turned to face the parapet, holding onto the top with both hands, resting his forehead on the cold steel. That felt so soothing. Then he heard a noise and turned his head to see a figure running toward him. He pushed himself upright and tried to scramble away from the advancing figure but his legs were not co-operating. His body was rebelling, betraying him, siding with the enemy. Then he heard a familiar voice,

'Sherlock, what the fuck are you doing?'

Oh, god, he thought, not you, too, John? I thought you were my friend?

'John, don't do this to me, please,' he called out.

'Do this to you? You are the one that's doing the doing and you're doing it to me!' replied John

Sherlock summoned all his energy and shouted as loud as he could,

'Don't come any closer, John, or, I swear to God, I will jump.'

John slowed his run to a walk but kept advancing.

'Oh, please, John, just leave me alone and let me do what I have to do.'

'What do you have to do?' John asked.

'I have to get away.'

'Away from what?'

'Just away, where I can't hurt anyone else.'

'Sherlock, you haven't hurt anyone. You are the one that's hurt.'

'No, John, you don't understand. I killed him.'

'Killed who, Sherlock? Who did you kill?'

'The boy, I killed the boy.'

'What boy? Sherlock, I don't understand.'

'The boy who helped me, who rescued me, who kept me safe. I killed him.'

'How did you kill him, Sherlock? Tell me how.'

'It was dark, really dark, pitch dark. I couldn't see but I knew the Little Demon was there and I told him to run, to get out of there, to get away. And he did.'

This was all complete gobbledygook to John. He had no idea what Sherlock was talking about but as long as he was talking he wasn't jumping so he had to keep him talking.

'So if he ran away, how could you have killed him?' John asked. He heard Sherlock begin to sob.

'He came back. I didn't know. It was so dark. I heard someone coming closer. I thought it was the Little Demon. I reached out and grabbed him by the throat and I squeezed. He was trying to kill me so I killed him. And when he was dead, I tried to escape and then I saw him – the Little Demon. He was standing there, laughing. He knew I'd killed my friend.'

Sherlock stopped sobbing and his voice became hard and menacing.

'So I killed him too.'

There was a pause and John realised he was standing still, shocked into inactivity by the harrowing account that he had just heard.

'So go away, John, and let me jump before I kill someone else who's helped me.' His voice sounded querulous, like a febrile child.

'Sherlock, if you jump then, trust me, I will jump right in after you. Then you will have hurt someone else. You will have hurt me.'

'But I won't know that, will I, because I'll be dead.'

Sherlock's voice was sounding weaker and weaker. John was just a few feet away now and could see that his friend's hair was soaked in sweat, plastered to his forehead and his face was slick in the lights on the bridge.

'I will make a point of coming to find you in whatever dark corner of hell you try to hide in,' John declared, with conviction.

'Oh, John, I thought you were supposed to be the kind caring one. I'm the one who's the machine.'

'Sherlock,' John spoke gently, soothingly, 'you're not making a lot of sense right now.'

'Oh, you've noticed that as well, have you? I thought it was just me.'

As he spoke, his knees began to buckle. John reached out and caught him under the arms.

'I think you need to sit down, mate,' he said, steadying him as he sank to the ground.

'Y'know, I think you're right. I think I need to go to sleep now,' and he slipped sideways along the wall and his head hit the pavement with a dull clunk.

John put his hand on his forehead. He was burning up. Looking back across the bridge, John could see the flashing lights of the approaching ambulance. He turned back to his friend, unfastening the hiking jacket and peeling it off him. Sherlock gave no resistance. His limbs were floppy and awkward to manoeuvre.

'God Almighty, it's like trying to undress a fucking gibbon,' muttered John, with a mixture of emotions trying to compromise his Adam's apple – relief, concern, joy, fear and many, many more.

ooOoo


	17. Chapter 17

**Disclaimer – I don't own the characters. They belong to ACD, MG and SM and the BBC. No one pays me to do this, I do it for love.**

**Chapter Sixteen**

The ambulance drew up behind the Discovery, still stationary at the side of the road, engine ticking over, as there was no key to turn it off. The paramedics jumped out and vaulted the barrier, onto the foot path, to tend to Sherlock. John stood and stepped back, to let them do their jobs. At almost the same moment, a police car drew up, bonnet to bonnet with the Discovery, having come from the north end of the bridge. A man in police uniform got out of the back seat, pulled on his peaked cap and approached the barrier, where John was standing, watching the medics administer First Aid to his friend.

'Where's the felon?' the police officer said, in an officious tone, just at John's shoulder. He turned slowly to face the man, who stood a good few inches taller than him.

'The what?' he asked, beginning to bristle.

'The felon, where is he? The nut job who was driving the stolen car.'

John could feel his right arm beginning to tense as an involuntary reflex took control of his body. This was arrested by a hand on his shoulder and the cool, calm voice that said,

'That's alright, John. Let me deal with this.'

It was Mycroft, who had been brought onto the bridge by one of the police cars that had been dispatched to deal with the incident from the South Queensferry police division. John took some deep breaths and forced his right arm to relax.

Mycroft turned to the puffed-up policeman from the Fife force and gave him the benefit of one of his most ingratiating smiles.

'Who might you be, sir?' Mycroft asked, in a deceptively pleasant tone.

'I, sir, am Inspector Macaleish, of the Fife Constabulary. I am in charge here. And who might you be?'

Mycroft smiled once more, almost bashfully, and looked down at the ground for a moment. John gave a small chuckle, which caused Inspector Macaleish to pull himself up to his full height, though he was still a good inch short of Mycroft's nonchalantly languid stance.

'Is something funny, sir?' the Inspector asked.

'Not yet, but it's getting there,' John replied.

Mycroft spoke again.

'Inspector Macaleish, please consider yourself suspended from duty, effective immediately. Return to your division, hand in your warrant card, clear your desk of any personal items and go home. You will be informed of the charges made against you, in due course, by the Independent Police Complaints Commission. Good evening.'

With that, Mycroft turned his back on the officer and walked towards a gate way, which had been opened in the barrier between the road and the footpath, so that he could go to his brother.

The police officer stood rooted to the spot, by shock and awe. When he eventually found his voice, he said to John,

'Who the hell was that?'

'He's your worst nightmare, mate. Good night.' And he too turned and walked back to where Sherlock was just about to be lifted onto the gurney, for transfer to the ambulance.

'How's he doing?' John asked.

'We need to reduce his temperature but, until he gets to hospital, the best we can do is pack around his head and neck with cool packs, outside the blanket, just to try and avoid febrile convulsions. What brings you chaps all the way up here?'

'He does. He's my friend.'

The medic looked from John to Sherlock, made a common but totally inaccurate assumption, and gave a small 'takes all sorts' kind of shrug.

'Well, let's get him in the ambulance. You riding shot gun?'

John looked at Mycroft, who said,

'Yes, you go ahead, John. I'll finish dealing with this and then come to join you. To which hospital are you taking him?' Mycroft enquired of the paramedic.

'Edinburgh Royal Infirmary, sir.'

There it is again, thought John, that automatic deference that Mycroft elicits. Man didn't call me 'sir'.

Mycroft thanked the man. As they lifted the gurney onto its extended wheels, in preparation for wheeling it to the ambulance, Mycroft placed his hand on the crown of his brother's head, bent and brushed his lips against his forehead, then, straightening up, transformed immediately back into Mr British Government and, turning to one of the police officers present, said,

'Someone shut down the engine on that Discovery. It's a dreadful waste of fuel, not to mention being terribly bad for the environment and for our lungs.'

The officer jumped to do Mycroft's bidding. John patted Sherlock's brother's upper arm and followed the gurney to the ambulance, behind the paramedic, who was still trying to work out the dynamics of this strange 'ménage a trois' from the Deep South.

'Oh, John?' Mycroft called after him. 'When you have a moment, would you please ring Molly and let her know what's happening? I've told her what I know but she is waiting to hear the details. He sent a text from the bridge to say that he loves her.'

John shook his head in disbelief. What a duffus the man was, telling a woman he loves her, for the first time, by text.

'Do you believe that?' John asked the paramedic, who was now engaged in revising his understanding of the social mores of the wacky Sassenachs, yet again.

ooOoo

On arrival at the A and E Department of the Edinburgh Royal Infirmary, Sherlock was whisked straight into the Trauma Room, because of his dangerously high temperature. John stood back, out of the way, watching the staff work on his friend, divided in his perception of what he saw, between objective professional curiosity and subjective emotional concern. Once they had Sherlock on the treatment table, the Trauma Specialist looked him up and down.

'Going off the way he's dressed, has he been camping? And, if so, where abouts?'

'Well, yes, he has been sleeping rough for a couple of days. As for where, well, Berkshire and Cumbria. Are you thinking Lyme Disease?' John asked.

'Aye, the thought had occurred. Are you a medic?' The doctor gave John an enquiring look.

'Trauma doctor, St Mary's, London,' John replied.

'Pleased to meet you, doctor.'

John returned the greeting.

'We'll have to cut his clothes off, which is a shame, as they look quite new,' the doctor commented.

'I don't think he'll mind at all. He's not really the camping type. I doubt he would ever have worn them again, anyway.'

A pair of sharp surgical scissors made short work of Sherlock's thermal leggings and tee-shirt.

'OK, let's take a look.'

The doctor applied his practised eye to a close examination of Sherlock's skin, looking for the tell-tale 'bull's-eye' rash, erythema chronicum migrans indicating the bite of a tick, the carrier of Lyme Disease. Unable to resist, John stepped forward and joined in the visual examination. Having examined the front of his body, the doctor, with the help of a nurse, rolled Sherlock first onto his left side and then his right, to examine his back, flanks and the insides of his arms and legs.

Just when they thought they may be on the wrong track, John spotted a small, raised, red spot on the inside of Sherlock's right thigh. It had a white ring around it and then a slightly reddened ring around that. This was a fairly conclusive piece of evidence, which matched the rest of his symptoms, particularly the raised temperature. Meningitis was always a risk with Lyme Disease as were some long term complications, including arthritic pain and muscle spasms, but early diagnosis made for an excellent prognosis. The doctor wrote up a prescription for a two week course of doxycycline, beginning with an intramuscular injection, immediately.

Having been stripped of all his clothing, down to his boxers, Sherlock's core temperature had already reduced but was still unacceptably high so the doctor decided he should be sent to ICU, where he would receive round the clock monitoring. He was seriously dehydrated, so a cannula was inserted in the back of his hand and the nurse put up a saline drip. If necessary, other medication could be given through the cannula too. Satisfied that all bases had been covered, the doctor despatched Sherlock to ICU and moved on to his next patient.

John followed Sherlock up to the ICU but took the opportunity to ring Molly, whilst the nurses washed his friend down with warm water to remove all the dried sweat and help cool his body down, through evaporation. This lower tech approach to temperature control was considered preferable to chemical interventions, at this stage.

Although it was after one in the morning, Molly answered her phone after one ring. She must have been sitting with it in her hand. She sounded frantic.

'What's happening, John? Is he alright?' she asked, urgently.

John described all the events from when he ran onto the bridge up to the present time, giving as much detail as he could remember, knowing that, if it were him and Mary, she would want to know everything. Telling her about Sherlock's confession to killing the boy was difficult for both of them.

'Oh, my God, John. No wonder he buried the memories so deep. He must have been distraught. He has real issues around taking life. Do you remember, when you shot the taxi driver, he asked if you were OK and when Irene Adler's booby trapped safe shot the CIA guy, he asked her if she was OK, too. He's talked about both those incidents, since he came back. It makes me wonder whether his conscience was troubling him, even then. Maybe these memories have been trying to surface for a while but it took the case of the decomposing dwarf to make the final connection with the hit man; this Little Demon, I'm assuming, was a pygmy? He would have to be someone of small stature, anyway, for Sherlock to confuse him with his friend, this young boy. Oh, God, no wonder he went off the rails. How awful for him. But how is he now, John?'

John went on to tell her about the diagnosis of Lyme Disease and the treatment protocol that had been initiated.

'He was still unconscious when they took him into ICU but that could be down to shock and exhaustion as much as the fever. He's not delirious, well, not now. I'm not sure about on the bridge. Before he passed out, his was talking rubbish, really. Even more so than usual.'

Molly knew that, if John was making 'Sherlock' jokes, things could not be too desperate.

'Look, I'm going to go now, Moll. You try to get some sleep and I'll ring you in the morning with an up-date. But, I think you can safely tell William that his daddy is coming home.'

'No, John, I can't, not yet. I'm sorry but I can't tell him that until I hear it from Sherlock himself,' Molly concluded.

'Well, I'm sure you know what is best for William. I'll ring you tomorrow, OK? Night, Moll'

Molly hung up. She could tell that John was disappointed in her. He wanted this to end happily ever after, as if she didn't! But Molly was a grown woman and she had survived a broken heart but she couldn't risk William's heart, for the sake of 'Blue Sky' thinking. Molly opened the text function on her phone and looked at Sherlock's text to her.

'Tell William I love him. Love you too, S'

There was still some hesitation there. Not where William was concerned – no doubts there:

'Tell William I love him.'

But for her, this was a mumble, in text form:

'Love you, too.'

That was a small step for a man but a giant leap for Sherlock Holmes, she acknowledged that. But then, he had thought he was about to die. He didn't die. So until he confirmed this declaration, she could not allow herself to hope. She would not survive a second broken heart. She would show William the text from his daddy. He needed to see that. But she had to know how Sherlock was going to deal with this knowledge that he had killed a child before she could go raising William's expectations that everything would go back to how it was. She kissed the text message in her phone – his words to her - and thought of Sherlock, lying in a hospital bed, hundreds of miles away, and she prayed that everything would work out fine.

ooOoo

After speaking to Molly, John went into Sherlock's hospital side room to sit with him, wondering when Mycroft would arrive. That moment, just before the paramedics put Sherlock into the ambulance, had touched John deeply. Sherlock was his best friend but he did have a very twisted attitude to his brother. John could see the deep affection Mycroft felt for his sibling and his behaviour tonight confirmed it. He had had his fair share of sibling angst with his sister, Harry, but they both knew there was love there, too. Sherlock did not seem to see that in his relationship with his brother. That was sad, John declared, to himself. Whatever had happened in the past to drive this wedge between them, it was about time it was driven out again.

John looked at Sherlock, lying naked on the hospital bed, except for his boxers, without even a blanket, the borrelia bacteria, coursing through his system, introduced by the tick that had attached itself and sucked his blood. He wondered at what point in the last three days this had happened; where had Sherlock been, what had he been doing? John's thoughts wandered further. How did Mycroft know where his brother was going? Who was this mysterious child that Sherlock had mistakenly killed? Why had Sherlock needed the boy's help?

He had never spoken to John in any detail about what he had done during his three year absence. There was still so much mystery around this whole incident. He wondered whether he would ever know all the facts. He thought about Molly and her refusal to tell William Sherlock would be back soon. She had a point. Sherlock was an enigma, not a normal man, so normal rules could not apply. She was right to be cautious, he concluded. Sherlock was the changeling child, left by the fairies, to replace the mortal child, taken by them for their own purposes. In this world but not of it: that was Sherlock to a tee.

Mycroft's arrival in the room, though subtle and stealthy, shook John from his reverie. He told John to go and lie down in the family room and try to get some sleep. He would sit with his brother. John accepted the offer gratefully and left the room. Mycroft pulled the standard issue hospital chair up close to the bed and, removing his jacket, hung it on the back. He then sat down, picked up his brother's hand and laid it in the palm of his own, lying on the sheet. He was reminded of an incident in Sherlock's past – his first week at Harrow, when some oaf of a boy had sat on Sherlock's rib cage and almost asphyxiated him. Mycroft had sat by another hospital bed, in another city, in another lifetime, almost, but he had felt the same feelings he did tonight. This was his brother and he loved him and would do whatever it took to protect him from whatever threats might assail him. That's what big brothers were for.

ooOoo

**A/N: Many thanks to Wikipedia for the information on Lyme Disease. I hope I got it right. **


	18. Chapter 18

**Disclaimer – I don't own the characters. They belong to ACD, MG and SM and the BBC. No one pays me to do this, I do it for love.**

**Chapter Seventeen**

The nurses came in at twenty minute intervals throughout the night, to take Sherlock's temperature, check his vital signs and change the saline drip, as needed. On two occasions, they wiped him down with sponges dipped in warm water, to cool him. Sherlock remained unresponsive through all of these procedures but, each time they left, the nurses reminded Mycroft to alert them if his condition changed.

At around three in the morning, he became quite agitated and began thrashing around on the bed, at one point almost dislodging the cannula from his hand. Alarmed, Mycroft pressed the call bell and the nurses came at once. They took his temperature again and concluded that he was not delirious but dreaming. They put extra bandaging over the cannula to keep it secure and suggested Mycroft talk to his brother to try to sooth him. If that didn't work, sedation was a possible alternative but the doctor would have to prescribe that.

'If he doesn't calm down soon, or if he gets even more agitated, ring the bell again and we'll call the duty doctor,' the staff nurse advised. She left a cup of sterile water and a sort of sponge on a stick, with which to moisten Sherlock's lips, and Mycroft did this diligently, every ten minutes or so, in between stroking his brother's head and the back of his free hand, talking to him about things that happened in their childhood, starting with,

'Do you remember when…' and going on from there.

ooOoo

Sherlock was dreaming again. This seemed to be a permanent state of affairs, lately. Awake or asleep, the memories kept flooding back.

The night Rocky told Sherlock about the Little Demon, the little family went through their evening rituals as usual, right up to the point when they all lay down to sleep. Sherlock had become a fully integrated member of the group, in the five days he had been there. Having to hide inside the shack all the time meant he had been assigned 'women's work', which all the boys found highly amusing, in a good natured way. But the girls took every opportunity to point out that, if it were not for them, despite the boys' hunter-gathering skills, the family would not be eating as well as they did and their clothes would all be filthy – not to mention the shack itself.

Sherlock supported them one hundred percent on that point and told them about his domestic arrangements back home in Baker Street, with his house keeper, Mrs Hudson and his flat mate, John Watson, sharing the domestic duties, whilst he was the 'bread winner', going out to work, solving puzzles. He smiled to himself, imagining how John would respond to that analysis of their assigned roles.

During that last evening, Sherlock had talked to Rocky and the other boys, explained why he came to Brazil, to destroy Moriarty's lieutenant, the powerful enemy who had set the Little Demon on his trail. He also told them about Moriarty and the threats he had made to his friends, and the elaborate hoax he had staged to free himself up to go out into the world, incognito, and destroy all his enemy's minions. He felt he owed them the truth, since they had risked so much to help him. He explained that, once he was away from Rio, he would be able to contact people who could take him out of Brazil, out of South America altogether, out of the clutches of Moriarty's man.

'The people I have spoken to, they can take you as far as you need to go – to Sao Paulo or Curitiba or even to Asuncion, in Paraguay, if necessary. Like I said before, they know the forest like no one else. They will keep you safe.'

As the other children spread the mats and prepared to go to sleep, Rocky told Sherlock it was time to leave. All the members of the group crowded around to say goodbye and wish him well. He was deeply touched by the warmth and sincerity of their wishes and he made a private vow that, once he was free from the constraints of his current situation, he would do something to alleviate the plight of these children, who had saved, welcomed and protected him.

Goodbyes said, Rocky and Sherlock slipped out of the shack and made their way through the favela. It was late, after midnight, and most of the house lamps and cooking fires had been extinguished or burned down to a dull, red glow, so it was very dark outside. Rocky took hold of Sherlock's wrist as he led him between the ramshackle buildings, with the lights of the city behind them and the deep velvet black of the forest ahead.

The night time creatures were abroad and the sound of cicadas, frogs and other forest residents increased in volume as they came closer and closer to the _Parque National da Tijuca_ that bordered the city to the south-west and provided access to the wilderness of the natural rainforest beyond. Rocky had explained to Sherlock during the evening that the plan was to meet up with his contacts on the edge of _Tijuca_, where Sherlock would be handed into the care of the Indians who still lived more natural lives within the forest. These people would take him, through the forest, to wherever he needed to go.

If it was dark in the favela, it was darker still in the forest. As the canopy closed over their heads, the darkness was as absolute as in an underground cavern. No moon or starlight penetrated. Rocky pulled Sherlock to a halt, next to a large tree, and whispered to him,

'We will wait here. They will find us.'

They stood beside the tree, completely still and silent, except for the infinitesimal sound and movement of their breathing. Sherlock had no idea how long they stood but, eventually, Rocky squeezed his wrist, to tell him that someone was coming. Sherlock could not hear or see anything but he took Rocky's word. He was the expert. Suddenly, he felt a shift in the very atmosphere. It was a tangible sensation, like the smell of fear. Rocky was pulling him back, away from the tree, towards the edge of the forest.

'It is him!' he hissed.

Sherlock strained all his senses in an attempt to locate the position of the threat but he could not. Rocky was still steering him away from the spot where they had been waiting. He stumbled through the undergrowth, aware that he was making far too much noise. Without warning, his foot caught in a tree root or a tendril of some kind and he fell flat on his face, winding himself. Rocky helped him to get to his feet but his ankle was causing him excruciating pain and, when he tried to put his weight on it, he gave an involuntary gasp and took the weight back onto his other foot.

'We must go, Holmes! The Little Demon, he is here!'

Sherlock leaned against a nearby tree trunk, sweat beginning to break out all over his body, already dripping from the humidity of the forest.

'Go, Rocky! Get away! Leave me here!'

'No, Holmes, I can't do that. You are my friend.'

'And I am yours, which is why I'm telling you to go. You have risked enough already. Please just go.'

He pushed Rocky away from him, towards the lights of the city, beyond the trees. Reluctantly, hesitantly, Rocky backed away from him. Sherlock dragged himself back to the tree where they had been waiting and leaned his back against it, to keep both his hands free to defend himself from the invisible killer who stalked him. Up ahead, he saw the branches move, in the dim light from the city. If that was Rocky coming back to help him, he had to stop him.

'Don't come in here!' he shouted. 'Get away! Run!'

Then he froze as he heard a noise behind him. While he had been giving his attention to Rocky, the Little Demon had crept up behind him. He was just the other side of the tree.

Sherlock positioned himself, bracing his shoulder against the tall tree's broad trunk and held his breath, straining his ears for any sound of the killer. The Little Demon came round the trunk of the tree, noiselessly. Sherlock felt him in the air, rather than seeing or hearing him. He reached out with his long arm, quickly, like a snake striking, and caught the little man by the neck. His large hand fitted neatly round the thin neck, his thumb and fingers meeting, and he squeezed with all the power that extreme fear and pumping adrenalin lent him.

Two small hands came up and scrabbled at his wrist but he ignored them. He lifted the little man's body off the ground and his small legs kicked wildly against the trunk of the tree, between them. All this time, the man made no vocal sound. He couldn't. His windpipe was crushed in Sherlock's powerful hand. When the kicking and the scrabbling ceased, Sherlock waited another few moments, just to be sure, before releasing his grip on the man's neck. The small body dropped to the jungle floor in an untidy heap.

Sherlock did not give it a second thought. He needed to find Rocky, again, so he could mediate between himself and the Indians who were to escort him to safety. He figured that the boy would not have gone far. He had been reluctant to go at all. He reached out for the nearest tree, to help support his weight, off the injured ankle. Reaching from tree to tree, he moved towards the edge of the forest, to the spot where he had last seen his friend. He moved the branches aside and was about to limp clear of the tree cover when he saw a figure, standing in the light of the risen moon.

Sherlock froze, cautious in the presence of this stranger. He was an Indian, wearing the native dress of the indigenous population, not in western clothes. Was this the person Rocky had asked for help? The man smiled and then sneered,

'I hope you have said your prayers, English. I am the Little Demon.'

Sherlock staggered back in shock, his eyes fixed on the face of the man he thought he had just killed.

'You? It can't be. Not you!'

Even as he spoke, his thought processes were spinning out of control, as he tried to deny the conclusion that his brain kept reaching. The man in front of him was enjoying his distress, laughing heartily, throwing back his head in an exaggerated manner. A powerful surge of abject fury consumed Sherlock and he hurled himself forward, grabbing the small man by the throat, the force of his lunge hurling them both onto the ground.

The man stopped laughing and his eyes popped wide open, the whites glowing in the moonlight. His tongue began to protrude from his mouth and his facial colouring darkened, perceptibly. One hand gripped Sherlock round the wrist but the other was reaching to a small, tube-shaped pouch he had, attached to a belt at his waist. Sherlock saw the movement, threw out his other hand, grabbed the man's wrist and twisted it violently. He felt a harsh crunch, as the man's wrist dislocated. The pain and surprise registered in the staring eyes but the spark of life was already beginning to fade. Sherlock's fury was unabated. His hand remained locked around the small man's throat long after the life had been squeezed from him.

Sherlock gradually became aware that he was surrounded by a ring of small, slight people, all wearing an eclectic mix of Western and ethnic dress. One of them stepped forward and put a firm hand on his shoulder.

'You can stop now, English,' he said, quietly. 'The Little Demon is dead.'

Sherlock loosened his grip on the man's neck. His hand felt numb as though the life had been squeezed out of it, too. He pushed himself up onto his feet, favouring his injured ankle, turned and limped back into the forest. The eight or so individuals surrounding him, parted to let him through. He dragged his injured leg over to the tall tree he had stood against earlier. He pulled himself round the tree trunk and his foot stumped against the small body that was lying at the base of the jungle giant. Gathering the body up in his arms, he hugged it to him and rocked, feeling a huge vacuum open up in his chest. He groaned into the dead boy's hair,

'No, Rocky, no. I told you to run. Why did you come back?'

ooOoo

In the ICU side ward, Mycroft continued to talk softly about pirate ships and treasure islands and Peter Pan. Presently, Sherlock relaxed, sighed deeply and rolled over onto his side, towards the light that was just beginning to seep into the room from the window, behind Mycroft. At around five a.m., the nurses decided his temperature was stable enough to make up his bed with a top sheet and a light blanket but asked Mycroft to alert them if he became flushed or started to sweat. Sherlock slept on, through it all.

ooOoo

**A/N; Many thanks, once more, to all the people who have 'followed' or 'favourited' my stories and especially to the amazing number of you who have taken the trouble to leave such positive reviews. I am really touched and flattered that you like my stories so much.**

**I'd like to send a special thanks to GoldenVine, who still likes 'Demon' even after I wrote that caricature of the Police Inspector in Fife. Hope you had a fab Burns Night!**


	19. Chapter 19

**Disclaimer – I don't own the characters. They belong to ACD, MG and SM and the BBC. No one pays me to do this, I do it for love.**

**Chapter Eighteen**

At seven o'clock, a nurse brought Mycroft a mug of steaming tea. He accepted it graciously, genuinely grateful for the kindness shown to him by these hard-working, conscientious and caring women. Mycroft had very little experience of National Health services but, so far, what he had seen had impressed him immensely. He looked at Sherlock, relaxed in his preferred sleeping position, curled like a foetus. He had always slept like that, from when he was tiny. Mycroft sipped his tea and let his mind wander.

'Do you remember when you were at Harrow and that huge Neanderthal sat on you, nearly suffocated you?' he thought aloud. 'That prat Morris, son of some Brigadier-General, wasn't he? He made your life an absolute misery 'til they finally cottoned on to him.'

He was talking as much to himself as to his brother. Having been awake for more than twenty-four hours, he was feeling a little light-headed. He glanced back at the figure in the bed, to see two almond eyes gazing at him, with a slightly puzzled wrinkle between the brows. The eyes blinked, trying to focus then, after a few moments, Sherlock pushed himself up on one elbow and looked at Mycroft, as though trying to decide if he were real or a mirage.

'Mycroft?' he said, his voice thin and wispy, not at all like his normal rich baritone. 'What are you doing here?' Then, as though slowly becoming aware of his surroundings, he said, 'Where is here?' Mycroft could not help smiling.

'That is exactly what you said last time!' he said, softly.

'Last time?' Sherlock asked, looking still more confused. Mycroft was struck, yet again, at how alike William and Sherlock were.

Mycroft explained,

'You're in hospital in Edinburgh.'

Sherlock rolled his head back onto the pillow and put his right hand up to his eyes.

'Yes, I remember,' he groaned.

'What do you remember?' asked Mycroft. Sherlock rubbed his hand across his eyes, and said.

'Everything.'

At that point, a nurse came in and, finding Sherlock awake, went off to advise the duty doctor, passing John, who staggered into the room, looking bleary-eyed. Also seeing that Sherlock was awake, he walked over to the bed, put a professional hand on his friend's forehead, unconsciously gauging his temperature against his own, and asked him how he was feeling. Sherlock stared a little blankly at John then shook his head, unable to formulate a coherent account of how he felt.

'Well, you're bound to feel a bit rough, you have Lyme Disease,' John advised him. Sherlock continued to look blank, closed his eyes, then said,

'You get that from….. sheep ticks.'

'Amongst other things, yes.'

Sherlock opened his eyes again and looked at the hand which now lay on his chest. He noticed the cannula protruding from the back of his hand and he held it up, in front of his face, then followed the drip line up to the bag of saline, which was almost ready for changing.

'Thank you, John,' he said, looking back to the other man.

'What for?' John asked

'Saving my life again.'

'Yes, well, that is a full time occupation, where you're concerned,' replied John.

At that moment, the nurse returned with the duty doctor and John made a discreet exit, to give the Holmes brothers some privacy with the physician and to ring Molly, whom he knew would be up and about and desperate for news.

ooOoo

Molly was, indeed, up and about and desperate for news. She answered John's call on the first ring.

'Hi, Moll,' he said, 'everything OK your end?'

'Yes, thanks, John. William's not up yet but Mrs H is and I've told her everything you told me last night. How is he now?'

'He's pretty out of it, to be honest. I just spoke to him and he is lucid. His fever is down, thanks to the anti-biotics but he's very weak, still a bit spacey.'

'Does he remember everything that's happened?'

'No idea. I need to find that out from Mycroft, but he does remember me being on the bridge with him. I'm surprised, to be honest. His temperature was so high, I'm amazed he got as far as he did without passing out. In many ways, that dumb cop did us a favour putting up that road block – although if Sherlock had jumped, I wouldn't be saying that, obviously. Anyway, I expect Mycroft will be arranging for him to transfer to a London hospital, if he's well enough to travel, so he can be closer to home. I can't imagine he really wants to leave him up here on his own and both Mycroft and I need to get back for work – and, of course, I to my lovely wife, who has forgotten what I look like and is having an affair with the milkman.' Molly thanked John for taking the trouble to keep her in the loop.

'No probs, Moll,' he responded. 'You have more right than most to be kept up to speed. Oh, and Moll, about last night, you were right. One can never second guess Sherlock. You have to hear it from him. Sorry, I was an arse.' Molly assured him that he was not an arse but a very dear friend, to all of them, and they said goodbye.

As Molly closed her phone, William pushed open the door to the sitting room and waddled in, rubbing his eyes and dragging his Snoopy dog. Molly gathered him to her and gave him a hug.

'William, guess what?' she asked.

'I don't like guessing what.' William replied. 'I always get it wrong when I guess what.' Molly and Mrs Hudson laughed, affectionately, at William's literal interpretation of the colloquialism.

'OK, then I won't make you guess, I'll just tell you, shall I?'

'Yes, please, Mummy,' William replied, happier with this suggestion.

'We got a text from Daddy!' William looked at his mother's face, to confirm that he had heard correctly, his eyes showing a spectrum of emotions, from suspicious disbelief to unconfined joy. Molly opened her phone and clicked on the 'Message' function, then opened the message she had received the night before. She turned the phone screen to show William. He looked at the image for a few moments but then his eyes clouded over.

'That's not Daddy's phone. That's not Daddy's number,' he said and two tears overflowed his lower eyelids and trickled down his cheeks.

'Oh, baby, Daddy didn't have his own phone. Remember, I told you, he couldn't take his phone there? He had to borrow someone else's phone but it was Daddy who sent the text. Look, it says, 'Tell William I love him.' Daddy loves you, darling,' Molly reassured him.

'When's Daddy coming home again?' William asked.

'I don't know, baby. I wish I did.' William's face spoke eloquently of how much he was missing Sherlock's presence. Molly hugged him close, then, on an impulse, switched her mobile to 'Phone'. She pressed the speed dial number for Mycroft. After three rings, Mycroft answered.

'Hello, Mycroft. I'm really sorry if I'm interrupting something but is Sherlock up to talking. William really needs to hear his voice?' she explained.

'He's with the doctor…' Molly heard Sherlock's voice in the background. It sounded croaky and weak but it was definitely him. The next moment, he was speaking into the phone.

'Molly, forgive me….' He began but she interrupted him.

'Sherlock, don't worry about that now. William really needs to speak to you. Are you able talk?' she asked.

'Yes, put him on,' he replied, laying back on the pillow, with eyes closed, shaded by one hand, the other holding the phone to his ear. Molly handed the phone to William, saying,

'It's Daddy. He wants to talk to you.' William took the phone and held it to his ear.

'Daddy, is that you?' he said, tentatively, waited a moment and then smiled a smile of such sheer delight that it would have melted even a granite heart. Molly sat listening to the one-sided conversation and Mrs Hudson went into the kitchen, still in her night dress and dressing gown, to make a pot of tea. William's conversation with Sherlock went on for a few minutes, as William talked about all the things that had happened since he last saw his daddy and Sherlock gave his responses.

'Alright. Yes, bye-bye, Daddy. Yes, love you, too,' William said, at last, then he held the phone out to her and said,

'Daddy wants you.' Molly took the phone and said hello. Sherlock's voice on the other end, though breathy and faint, was music to her ears

'Molly, I'm with the doctor now, but as soon as I can, Ill ring you.' His hand, holding the phone, dropped onto the bed. Mycroft took back the phone and hung up. Molly closed the phone and, turning to William, said brightly,

'How about some breakfast, baby?'

ooOoo

'Sorry,…my son…... He was worried,' Sherlock murmured. The doctor nodded, smiling sympathetically.

'Well, Mr Holmes, I have been speaking with your brother and I am happy for you to transfer to a hospital in London, by private air ambulance, so long as you are monitored by medical staff throughout the journey,' the doctor concluded. Sherlock nodded, distractedly. The doctor then made some notes on his chart, accepted Mycroft's thanks for his ministrations, looked at Sherlock, who was lost in thought, and, nodding his goodbyes, moved on to his next patient. Mycroft stood and explained to Sherlock that he would make some calls, to organise the transfer to London. As he left the room, John returned, to find Sherlock looking distant and preoccupied.

'You OK, mate?' he asked.

Sherlock looked up.

'Your phone, John, can I use it?' John handed over the phone.

'Would you like me to go?' he asked.

Sherlock nodded. John reciprocated the nod and left the room, resolving to go and find some breakfast. Sherlock found Molly's number in John's 'Contacts List' and speed dialled. Molly picked up on the fourth ring.

'John?' she asked, tentatively.

'No,' replied Sherlock.

'Oh, Sherlock,' Molly said. There was a long pause. Eventually, Sherlock spoke.

'I've worried you and I am sorry. I haven't been myself, lately. I know what happened in Brazil, now. I've had strange dreams but they're not dreams, they're memories. Is this making sense to you?

'Yes, Sherlock, it's making perfect sense….'

'Good. That's...good. Molly, I told you something last night…'

'Sherlock, please, can we not have this conversation on the phone?'

'OK, I understand why you wouldn't want that. Can I just say…..what I said….I do. That is to say…..love you…..I mean…..I mean to say….'

'Sherlock,' she interrupted him.

'Hmm?'

'I know what you are trying to say and can I just say that you sound like me, circa four or five years ago, which is strangely gratifying. But, please, just listen. Let's talk about this properly, when you are more…..yourself. And I haven't even asked you how you are. How are you?'

'I don't know. I feel….disconnected. I know I still have a lot to do to sort out my head.'

'When you're feeling better, you can go back to St. Hugh's….'

'No, that's not the right place for me. I felt isolated there, away from home, away from William and from you. John was right, friends protect me. You protect me.' He lay back on the pillow, with the phone at his ear and his free hand over his eyes, remembering the dream where she was snatched away from him and feeling the pain he had felt then.

'Molly, I asked you once, if I wasn't everything you think I am, everything I think I am, would you still want to help me, do you remember?'

'How could I ever forget,' she whispered.

'I'm asking you now. If I had done something so terrible, so wrong, so evil, would you still want to know me?'

'Sherlock, I know what you did; John told me what you told him, on the bridge, last night. It wasn't your fault, you didn't know. It was an accident, a mistake, a cruel trick of Fate. You could never do anything like that deliberately. And I do still love you. I'll always love you.'

Sherlock rolled onto his side and curled in upon himself, overwhelmed by grief and relief, shame and blame, unable to speak.' Molly heard his broken breathing.

'Sherlock? Is anyone there with you?' He drew in a deep breath and regained some control.

'Not right now,' he told her.

'Well, you ring the bell and get someone to come in. You shouldn't be on your own.'

'No, Molly, I'm fine, just tired. Mycroft's here, now.'

'OK, I'm going to hang up, now. You just rest and don't worry about anything.'

'OK.' He shut off the call and looked up at his brother.

'Anthea is arranging everything. She'll ring when she has the details,' Mycroft said. Sherlock reached out a shaking hand and placed John's phone on the bedside cabinet, closed his eyes and slept again.

ooOoo


	20. Chapter 20

**Disclaimer – I don't own the characters. They belong to ACD, MG and SM and the BBC. No one pays me to do this, I do it for love.**

**Chapter Nineteen**

Mycroft walked into his office and closed the door. Anthea was not here, which was hardly surprising, as it was nine o'clock in the evening. He had come straight from King Edward's, having just overseen the transfer of his brother from the Edinburgh hospital and made sure he was comfortable in the London one. He had been awake and active for nearly forty hours, now, and knew he was approaching the limits of his endurance but had come into his office to catch up on any events which might have arisen while he was in Scotland. He looked in his in-tray, finding a sheaf of memos, left there by his admirably efficient PA. He would take them home to read. There was also a large manilla envelope, with a note attached, telling him that it had arrived that day in the diplomatic bag from Rio de Janeiro. He would take that home, too. He flicked through everything else and decided none of it was urgent enough to demand his immediate attention. He picked up his brief case from beside his desk, pushed the memos and the envelope into it, closed and locked it, then turned and left the office, switching off the light and closing the door. His chauffeur waited in his car; a hot bath and a comfortable bed waited in his London flat.

ooOoo

John paid the cabby and, hefting his overnight bag, walked across the pavement and up to the door to his building. He let himself in and mounted the stairs to the first floor, opened his flat door and called out,

'Honey, I'm home!' in his best, though not very good, mid-Atlantic accent. Mary came out of the kitchen, wearing an apron over her smart black court skirt and white blouse.

'Excuse me? Do I know you? Are you sure you have the right house?' she asked, pointing a wooden spoon at him. He put down his case, pushed the wooden spoon aside and caught her around the waist with both arms. In her bare feet, she was just a half inch shorter than him.

'No, you don't know me. I am the Sexual Predator of St John's Wood and this is your lucky day.' To squeals of delight, he bore her backwards across the room to the sofa, where they fell in a heap.

ooOoo

Molly and Mrs Hudson sat in the sitting room of Molly's flat, sipping cups of tea before going off to bed. It had been a long and stressful day for Molly, at work, trying to concentrate on a complicated analysis of trace evidence found at a crime scene. She owed it to the victim of this crime to do a thorough job so she endeavoured to clear he mind of any stray thoughts of Sherlock. His stumbling declaration on the phone that morning had been deeply touching, if not frighteningly reminiscent of a Hugh Grant movie but she still did not know what it meant in terms of their relationship. Did this mean the dynamics were about to change or was this just a progress report?

'Mind on the job, Molly, mind on the job,' she reminded herself.

She would take William to see him tomorrow evening, after work. They would all be together for the first time for – was it only a week? It felt like so much longer.

ooOoo

Mrs Hudson sipped her tea and thought about tomorrow. She would put her key into the front door lock of 221 Baker Street, push open the door, walk through and close it behind her. Home, again, she thought, picturing herself leaning back against the door, eyes closed, smiling. She loved her house, like an old friend. She loved her life and considered herself fortunate indeed that, as a widow, with no children of her own, she had acquired this slightly dysfunctional but infinitely delightful surrogate family, on whom to lavish love and care. She was hugely honoured that they called upon her to help them out with babysitting, hand-holding and general mothering. Not for her, the lonely life of the forgotten senior citizen. Being around these vibrant and dynamic young people kept her young, too. Still, it was lovely to go home, to be able to put the kettle on and put her feet up; to read her women's magazine and check out her horoscope and 'Colour Ways'. She'd be here next time they needed her – and, if recent history was anything to go on, that would not be long. Tomorrow, she would go and visit dear Sherlock, in the posh hospital that the Royals used – wait 'til she told her sister about that! Poor Sherlock, he had been in the wars, lately, but she would go and give him a hug and help him feel better.

ooOoo

Greg Lestrade stood in the now deserted incident room, from where he had directed and co-ordinated the search for Sherlock, for the best part of sixty hours, without a break. When Mycroft rang late Monday night, to say that Sherlock was found and was on his way to hospital, Lestrade had sent all his officers home and told them not to report for work until lunchtime the following day. He, however, had stayed behind to tidy up some loose ends. He had informed the Cumbrian police that the missing person had been found, and passed on Mycroft's request that they try to locate and retrieve Sherlock's back pack and the other things he had purchased in Carlisle, earlier that day, and send them to Scotland Yard, for safe keeping. He also advised them that Mycroft had arranged for the stolen Discovery to be returned to its owner at his own expense. A third request had been that they locate the pawn ticket for Sherlock's watch and advise him when they had done so. When the Cumbrian police asked him about charges for the theft of the vehicle, Lestrade advised them that the charges could be made but he doubted it would go any further, due to the diminished responsibility of the perpetrator. Lestrade also contacted the British Transport Police and advised them that Mycroft had made similar arrangements for the stolen land rover. He then contacted the Berkshire police and advised them that charges could be made for the theft of the land rover but not to expect a conviction.

That was twenty-four hours ago. Standing, again, in the partially dismantled incident room, Lestrade rubbed his eyes with the heels of his hand and wondered if there was anything else he needed to do. The team had been back that afternoon and had collated all the evidence connected with the Missing Person case, for evaluation and archiving. A lot of the equipment used had been broken down into components and packed away in boxes, ready to go into storage until another missing person or major incident meant they were needed again. Whilst he was thinking what else needed to be done, the email alert on his PC pinged and he looked to see what it was about. He saw that the Cumbrian IT network had forwarded a copy of the night vision film taken by the helicopter. He wondered whether this was still needed but decided to download it anyway, just in case. He clicked on his mouse to download the video onto the Met's network. Looking round the now defunct room, he decided everything else could wait until tomorrow. He shut down his PC, collected his coat, turned out the lights and left the office.

ooOoo

Sherlock lay in yet another strange bed. How many was this, now? He'd almost forgotten what his own bed felt like. He could hear the sounds of the city outside his hospital window. This was his city, his home. He felt safe and secure here, even though he knew better than most what dangers lurked out there in the urban jungle. But he'd experienced the real jungle, the most famous jungle in the world, the Amazon Rainforest. He had to admit, he had only hazy memories of his two week trek from Rio to Asunción And this was not because he had buried those memories, along with all the others. After he found Rocky's lifeless body, behind the tree, he had felt his mind unhinge. The Indians, who had come to his aid, implored him to leave the boy and come with them but he could not make his brain engage. The process of self-delusion had already begun. In the end, they wrestled the body from him and two of their number took it back to the shack, to Rocky's 'family', to explain what had happened and so they could arrange for burial. The Indians bound his injured ankle with a bandage made from some kind of vegetable matter – a huge leaf, perhaps, like that of a banana palm – and gave him something to chew that not only helped with the pain but seemed to induce a kind of stupor so that, although he was able to walk and move with the group, he had no awareness of his physical surroundings. He could remember what that felt like, now. It was like being in a waking dream, full of strange sounds and blurred images. On reflection, they probably gave it to him to make him co-operative and biddable, to get him moving and keep him docile. They had seen what he was capable of, after all. They kept him topped up for the entire trip so, even now, when all his suppressed memories were laid bare, he had no concrete recollections of the journey through the forest, except for the last couple of days, when they gradually withdrew the substance. Whatever it was, he would have to investigate, once he was able to get back to work.

By the time he reached Asunción in Paraguay, he was fully lucid. He was able to recall the number he had been given, at the beginning of the operation, and the code word that would trigger his removal. If only it could have been that simple in Rio, just to call a number and be picked up, but such was the intense nature of the search for him, by Moriarty's representative, he would not have made any meeting point alive. Even the jungle had not been safe from the forces of evil. Not safe for Rocky, anyway. And, ultimately, not safe for the Little Demon, either.

He could remember the final part of his journey, picked up by helicopter and flown to Bogotá, where he presented himself at the British Embassy. He wondered exactly when the story he gave to the Embassy staff, of his journey over-land from Paramaribo, had formulated in his memory. He only knew that, at the time, he believed it to be true. Lying awake in the hospital room, he thought about his promise to himself, to do something to improve the lot of the street children, and, also that of the Indians who had kept their side of the bargain and spirited him away to safety, despite the fact that he had killed their friend. He had even more reason to keep that promise now. He owed it to Rocky, the boy who had helped him, unbidden and motivated by pure altruism, and paid with his life. He would talk to Mycroft. They had the means. He would keep his promise.

ooOo

Mycroft sat in the sitting room of his London flat, sipping a black morning coffee and looking through the documents he had received from the British Consul in Rio. They made fascinating reading. Moriarty's lieutenant was clearly a man of questionable tastes. It appeared, from the background information, that he had rather a predilection for the company of young boys – the younger the better, it would seem. It appeared, also, that whilst being the business acumen behind the farmers' cartel, he was not averse to sampling the product himself. There were several (mostly candid) photographs, in the file, of the man in question at some of the racier nightspots that Rio had to offer for the less discerning foreign visitor. Mycroft flicked through them and then discarded them, onto the floor next to his chair. He turned to the incident report of the man's murder. This was the most interesting of all. He had been found in the bedroom of his own apartment, with his throat cut. He was naked and there was evidence of sexual activity, immediately prior to the murder. It looked like a Honey Trap, but perpetrated by whom? There were hand-prints in blood on the bed sheets and on the bedroom door frame. They were small, like a child's hand, but the Rio police had not found a match on their own database. This was not a surprise. It would have been utterly astonishing if a match had been found. The only other piece of evidence of interest was an image taken from the CCTV recording on the night of the murder. It showed a person, a young, male person, entering the building in the company of the murdered man, approximately an hour before the estimated time of death. The boy's face was partially in shadow but was quite a clear image, probably recognisable to someone who knew him.

Mycroft sat back in his chair, deep in thought. Yesterday, Sherlock had spent most of his waking hours telling him and John about his time in Rio, about the street children who had hidden and assisted him, about the hit man hired to track and kill him, about the rendezvous in the _Parque National da Tijuca_ and the mistaken identity that led to the death of the boy, Rocky, and how he had killed the Little Demon.

Mycroft got up and walked into his kitchen, poured himself another coffee and returned to his chair, recalling his misgivings when Sherlock had first met John Watson. Looking back, now, he could not even put into words how grateful he was for that chance encounter. If at no other time, during their acquaintance, John Watson had been of any service to his brother, he had more than justified his place in Mycroft's good offices by his actions these past two days. Firstly, he had undoubtedly prevented Sherlock from jumping off the bridge and now, yesterday, he had helped his brother begin to come to terms with the terrible anguish he felt at having mistakenly killed the boy.

'I killed him, John, with my bare hands, with this hand,' Sherlock had sobbed, gazing at his hand with horror and revulsion.

'It doesn't matter what means you used to kill him, Sherlock. The point is, you didn't know it was him. You thought it was your enemy. Take a life to save a life, that's what you must remember. You thought you were saving, not just yourself but him as well and probably all the other children, too. Because you can be certain that Moriarty's man would not have stopped before he punished the ones who aided you,' John had reasoned.

'Yes, but a gun or a knife, you can throw away but this hand is going to remind me every day what I did to him. This hand touches William's hair, it touches Molly's skin.'

'Sherlock, that hand has already cleansed itself. Isn't that the hand you used to kill the hit man? You avenged that boy's death with that hand. That hand has earned its redemption and so have you. You must forgive yourself. Do you think Rocky would want you to punish yourself like this?'

Sherlock had shaken his head and then buried it in his friend's shoulder and so the healing process had begun. Mycroft had felt like a voyeur during this exchange, between the two men who trusted and respected one another implicitly. But he was compelled to stay. He couldn't tear himself away. He could never have helped his brother in this way because he had no point of reference. He was fully aware that decisions he had made had, in the past, led to the deaths of men and probably would again in the future. But these two men had looked into the eyes of the men they had killed. There was no comparison.

He needed to get to work. He had missed a whole day and, in his line of work, a day was a very long time. He would go to the office, catch up on what had gone on in his absence, deal with any urgent matters and then go to see Sherlock. He looked at the image in his hand, of the child in the apartment block, and then, with a nod of confirmation, he stood, put on his jacket, put the file back in his brief case and walked out of the flat, closing the door, with an emphatic click, behind him.

ooOoo

Mrs Hudson arrived at King Edward's at around ten o'clock. She then stood on the pavement, across the road from the famous front door, which had featured in so many news bulletins, whenever one of the Royals required a hospital admission. She was rather intimidated by this thought. She suddenly felt that she didn't belong here. As she stood, rendered immobile by indecision, a black limousine glided to a halt, in front of the hospital entrance. The driver got out, walked round and opened the passenger door and she saw Mycroft Holmes step out of the car. She smiled with relief, even more so when he turned and hailed her. She scurried across the road to him.

'My dear Mrs Hudson, what are you doing standing out in the cold? You will catch your death,' he greeted her.

'Don't be daft, Mycroft. It's not cold at all! But I am glad you came when you did. I was worried they wouldn't let me in.'

'Nonsense. I have advised them as to who might be visiting Sherlock and you are on that list. You have only to give your name at Reception. However, you can come in with me, now. Come along,' and he offered Mrs Hudson his arm, which she took with gratitude, and escorted her into the building.

Sherlock was sitting up in bed, wearing a hospital gown, with his knees pulled up to his chest and his arms wrapped around them, watching daytime television. Mycroft thought he looked considerably better than he had the evening before. It had, however, been a stressful day and he had, hopefully, benefited from a good night's sleep. Mrs Hudson went straight over to the bed and hugged him, warmly, then stood back and looked at him, intently, brushing her hand down the side of his face. Mycroft was deeply envious of his brother's relationship with this older woman. She was the closest thing to a mother either of them had ever had and Sherlock was clearly the apple of her eye.

'Look', she said, placing a weekend case on the edge of the bed, 'I've brought you some things I thought you might need – just some pyjamas and your dressing gown, underwear, toiletries, that sort of thing. I didn't know whether to bring your violin but I thought they might complain if you disturbed the other patients.' Sherlock thanked her and she put the case on the floor in the corner, for him to investigate later. Mycroft asked Sherlock how he was and received a non-committal shrug in reply, but he was clearly feeling a little better at least, since he was sitting up and taking notice of the world again.

'I've brought something to show you,' Mycroft said. Sherlock looked mildly curious. Mycroft reached into his inside pocket and took out the image of the child, handing it to his brother. Sherlock looked at it then reached up behind him and switched on the overhead reading lamp, attached to the wall behind the bed, to illuminate it better.

'Where did you get this?' he asked, looking astonished.

'You know him, then?' Mycroft asked.

'Yes, it's Ru'e. He was the second-in-command of the children, Rocky's wing man. Where did you get this?' Mycroft explained. Sherlock listened in amazement.

'I've worked out the dates, based on what you told me concerning when you flew to Rio and how long you stayed with the children. Moriarty's man was killed the day after you left with the Indians. So, you see, brother. They knew who to blame for their friend's death and they took their revenge and, in doing so, completed your mission.' Mrs Hudson had absolutely no idea what they were talking about but she could tell, from Sherlock's face, that, although there were tears running down his cheeks, they were happy tears so this must be good news. She smiled to herself, as she left the room to go and rustle up a pot of tea from somewhere in this posh hospital, leaving the two brothers alone, together.

ooOoo

**To all those who have been kind enough to 'follow' or 'favourite' my story, I give sincere thanks. For those who have taken the trouble to review it, I am deeply grateful. Your encouraging words have been inspirational! **


	21. Chapter 21

**Disclaimer – I don't own the characters. They belong to ACD, MG and SM and the BBC. No one pays me to do this, I do it for love.**

**A/N: I have never been inside King Edward's, I've only seen the outside, on the TV, like most people, so my description of the interior is entirely fictional, all from my imagination.**

**Chapter Twenty**

Molly stepped through the main door to King Edward's and walked into Reception. The lady behind the desk recognised her from her own stay in the hospital, and rose to greet her, with a warm smile and a friendly wave to William. She advised Molly that Sherlock was in the room next to her old room so the mother and son walked along the internal corridors of the building, until they came to the right door. She knocked, quietly, just to warn Sherlock that someone was coming in. She could see him, through the frosted window glass, lying on top of the bed, in his burgundy dressing gown. She opened the door and let William go in ahead of her.

William walked through the door and turned to his left, remembering the lay out of the rooms from his mother's stay, a few months ago. He saw Sherlock on the bed and went to run towards him, with a shout of delight, then stopped dead in his tracks, gazing in surprise at his father's face.

'Daddy, your face is all furry!' he exclaimed. Sherlock smiled and his hand went up to his jaw, feeling the five-day growth of beard that he had almost forgotten was there. Of course, William had only ever seen him clean-shaven. The little boy completed his short journey across the room and climbed onto the bed. Sherlock reached out and pulled him to his chest. William put his small hands on Sherlock's cheeks and wiggled his fingers in the wiry whiskers, giggling at the sensation. Sherlock pulled his son to him and nuzzled his neck. William screamed with delight.

'Ow, Daddy! That tickles!' he laughed.

Molly approached the bed, leaned over and kissed Sherlock, affectionately, on the lips.

'Your right, William, it does tickle. Hmm, not sure about that. It looks good, but could be a bit scratchy!' Sherlock smiled,curled his right arm round Molly's waist and pulled her into a family hug. After a moment, she pushed away, walked around the bed and sat on the bedside chair, reaching out for Sherlock's hand, entwining her fingers in his.

'So, how are you?' she asked. 'You look a lot better than you sounded yesterday.'

'I'm fine,' he replied, 'so long as I don't try to stand up or walk about. That's why I've still got the beard. I can't stand up long enough to shave.'

'Couldn't one of the nurses give you a shave?' she asked. His sidelong look told her exactly what he thought of that suggestion.

'OK, moving on!' she giggled.

William then monopolised his attention for most of the rest of the visit. Molly picked up the room phone and asked for a pot of tea for two and, a glass of milk for William, and mused to herself how second nature this was to her now, ordering room service in a hospital. How her life had changed! The tea arrived and she poured two cups, then sat back, with hers and watched, contentedly, as Sherlock and William chattered, randomly, about whatever came to mind. When it was time to leave, Sherlock pulled Molly into a tight hug.

'We need to talk,' he whispered. She pulled back and looked into his eyes. What she saw made her heart race.

'Shall I try and come tomorrow, during the day?' she asked.

'Yes, you do that,' he replied and crushed his lips on hers.

ooOoo

Greg Lestrade was glad to be back in his own office, dealing with everyday, hum-drum matters, like murders and armed robberies. He was just reviewing the case notes on a particularly gruesome murder, involving very sharp instruments, when his office door opened and Mycroft Holmes entered. Lestrade rose and the two men shook hands, then both took a seat.

'I just wanted to congratulate you on a job well done, Inspector. Your team were first class and I will be sending a letter of commendation to the Chief Constable, recommending you for whatever award might be appropriate in such circumstances,' Mycroft declared. The DI thanked him, on behalf of his team.

'Right, do we have any loose ends, still?' Mycroft asked. Lestrade turned to his PC and clicked the mouse to open a couple of windows.

'The heat seeking film the helicopter took, they found some odd blips on it, right in the middle of a wood, about five miles from the village where the Discovery was stolen. I'll show you.' Greg turned the screen toward Mycroft and clicked on the arrow to start the replay. Mycroft saw a white blob, in the middle of the screen, that suddenly elongated and then shrank to nothing, leaving the screen a fairly uniform grey, indicating the general background temperature of the woodland floor. Greg moved the curser back and played the clip again and a third time. By the third play, Mycroft could see that the shape was a head and arms, which were suddenly withdrawn.

'Sometimes my brother is far too clever for his own good,' Mycroft observed. 'He wears thermal clothing and sleeps in – let me guess – an Arctic sleeping bag, to mask his body heat from heat-seeking photography? Even if he hadn't contracted Lyme Disease, I suspect he would have suffered heat exhaustion, under all those layers, at this time of year, even in Cumbria.'

'Well, as a result of that image, the local plods were able to find all his abandoned gear. They've packed it all up and are sending it down by UPS. They also found the pawn ticket in the pocket of the camouflage jacket he took from the nurse. They wanted to know what you wanted them to do with it.'

'Tell them I will send £1000 by electronic transfer to any account they choose, if they would kindly redeem the watch and send it back to me, at my Whitehall office.'

'OK,' Lestrade made a note of that. 'Er, the Berkshire police are not going to charge Sherlock for taking the Land Rover – they don't want to mess up their conviction rate. They are going to issue him with a Caution, instead. That way, they are seen to take action but it won't have to go in front of the CPS. I am going to suggest that the Cumbrian police do the same with regards to the theft of the Discovery.' Mycroft nodded his approval.

'Now,' the DI went on, 'what about the Police Inspector in Fife, Macaleish? What do you want us to do about him?'

'Well, Inspector, he disobeyed a direct order.'

'Yes, he did, but, technically, he and I are of equal rank so he was not disobeying a senior officer, as such. And, he actually did us a favour, inadvertently, didn't he? By stopping Sherlock, John was able to catch up with him. The state he was in, he could have passed out at the wheel and caused a bad accident, multiple casualties, maybe even fatalities.' Mycroft considered this and decided to be magnanimous.

'Oh, very well. I'm feeling unusually generous today. I will not make a formal complaint to the IPCC. How you deal with the internal discipline is your business. Anything else?'

'Just a personal question, actually,' said the DI. Mycroft looked surprised.

'Well, not personal, in the sense of being…personal but just…personal to me…'

'Inspector, why don't you just ask your question and we will see where it leads?' Mycroft urged him.

'How did you know where Sherlock was going?'

'Oh, is that all,' Mycroft laughed, looking slightly disappointed. 'When Sherlock was nine and I was sixteen, our father had to go to Aberdeen – something to do with OPEC – and, for some bizarre reason, he decided to take me and Sherlock with him. But, he didn't actually take us to Aberdeen. He installed us in a hotel in Arbroath, with my brother's nanny and the chauffeur to take care of us. I suspect it was some sort of security crisis and he wanted us kept close. Anyway, Sherlock absolutely fell in love with the place. He had just about reached the age that he realised pirates didn't exist – well, not in the swashbuckling sense, anyway, but he loved to watch the fishing fleet come in. He absolutely insisted that we go to the dock at about six o'clock every morning, so he could watch them off-load the catch. He said that, one day, he would run away to sea, on the fishing fleet. Well, you can imagine how having to get up that early every morning, just to humour my little brother, appealed to my sixteen year old self. I asked to be allowed to stay in my hotel room but the nanny said she could not leave one behind because it would leave one us unprotected. The chauffeur, you understand, was also our bodyguard. That 'holiday' was one of the many things that drove a wedge between my brother and I, which is still there, to this day, unfortunately. When he turned east, instead of continuing north, I just knew that was where he was going.' Mycroft finished the explanation and sat, looking pensively into the middle distance, for a few moments, then mentally shook himself and looked back at the DI.

'So, is that all you were wondering about, Inspector?' he asked.

'Er, yes, thank you, sir,' Lestrade answered and clicked the mouse to close the window on his PC.

'Well, please let me have that account number for the money transfer and also let me know when Sherlock's possessions arrive. I'll send someone to collect them.' Mycroft rose and offered his hand for Lestrade to shake, which he did, and then, with a nod, he left.

ooOoo

Molly had just finished putting William to bed when her mobile phone rang with Mycroft's ring tone. She picked up immediately, fearing the worst.

'Mycroft? Is he alright?' The voice on the other end of the phone was calm and reassuring.

'He is fine, Molly, really. The doctors are very pleased with his progress. The blood tests taken today show that the bacterium levels are much reduced. The antibiotics are working admirably. I just wanted to take the opportunity to bring you up to speed on a few things. Do you mind if I call round?'

'I don't mind at all, Mycroft. Please, come at once.' Ten minutes later, the doorbell buzzed.

Molly greeted Sherlock's brother with a warm hug. She knew how much strain he had felt over the preceding week, still feeling guilty for, perhaps, aiding and abetting the evil Moriarty in his assassination of Sherlock's reputation, the circumstance which had, ultimately, led to his brother going into deep cover in the first place. These things were all connected; the Butterfly of Chaos Theory was still beating its wings. She invited him to sit on her sofa and poured them both a class of Rioja, then sat also and waited to hear what Mycroft had to tell.

She listened with many mixed emotions as he related to her the story Sherlock had told to him and John about his time in Rio and in the Rainforest. During his time away, she had tried not to think about the dangers he might have been exposed to, often unsuccessfully, but even her worst case scenarios had not been as bad as this. She could not begin to imagine how he had survived three years of similar jeopardy. It reminded her what a remarkable man he was and how extraordinarily fortunate she was that he had chosen to share at least part of his life with her.

'The reasons I'm telling you all this, Molly, are twofold. In the first instance, it is so that he doesn't have to relate it all over again, because it was so dreadfully painful for him to do it even once. In the second instance, it's to warn you that he will most likely be emotionally vulnerable for some time to come, as he comes to terms with the facts he has uncovered. He spoke to me today about his wish to create some sort of foundation for the benefit of the street children of Rio in general but also for the little family he came to know so well, specifically. He wants to call it the Rocky Foundation and he wants it to provide social security and education for the children, so that they can build better lives for themselves. I will be speaking to our family's solicitor about how best to go about this. He also wishes to become an anonymous benefactor of a charity which helps the dispossessed tribes of Brazil regain ownership and control of their tribal lands. I will be talking to the solicitor about that too. Once he's out of hospital and feeling up to it, he will put his instructions in writing, so then we will be able to proceed. Sherlock has a considerable personal wealth, held in a trust fund, set up by our father, of which I am a trustee, so he has the means to achieve this aim. I think it will help him to heal.

Molly was mildly astonished. She had known that money was not a primary concern of Sherlock's and she had occasionally wondered where his income came from, since he rarely was paid for any of his work as a Consulting Detective. Well, now she knew. He was the male equivalent of a Pouting Heiress. A Pouting Heir? Was there such a thing? This certainly had been an evening for revelations. Long after Mycroft bid her good night and left, she sat and pondered the things she had learned that day.

ooOoo

At eleven o'clock the next morning, Molly hung up her white lab coat, put on her jacket, picked up her bag and left work for the day. She had taken advantage of the flexitime offered at St Bart's, for non-frontline staff, like herself, to organise their working hours amongst themselves. She treated herself to a cab to King Edward's and presented to the Receptionist before walking through the building to Sherlock's room. When she entered, he was sitting up in the bedside chair, with the TV remote in his hand, channel surfing. His five day beard was gone.

'You shaved!' she exclaimed, by way of a greeting. 'You must be feeling a bit better.'

'Quite a lot better, actually,' he said, standing and coming round the bed to take her into his arms and hug her tightly to him. They stood in the middle of the room for some time, just enjoying the physical and emotional closeness of that embrace. Neither felt the need to break away or become more intimate. It was a reaffirmation of their mutual regard and emotional reliance. Eventually, he did relax his hold and, stepping back, sat heavily on the bed.

'Phew,' he said, 'that's the longest I've stood up in three days.' He swung his legs up onto the bed and leaned back against the headboard, patting the mattress beside him, inviting her to sit, which she did. He took her hand in his and examined her fingers, intently, clearly buying time whist he formulated a statement of some sort in his head. For a man who had such a facility with words, he was easily tongue-tied when it came to interpersonal communication. She just waited patiently, knowing that he would work it out eventually. And he did.

'Molly, I've never really talked to you about how I feel about you. You have told me on numerous occasions how you feel about me and I've never reciprocated. The other night on the bridge, when I decided I was going to kill myself, that was my biggest regret. I regretted that I would never see William or you or John or Mrs Hudson again. But most of all, I regretted that I had never told you…' he began to falter, but she still just sat still and let him work through it himself. After several moments and a few false starts, he looked up from inspecting her fingers, looked straight into her eyes and said,

'I love you!' and then smiled the most beatific smile she had ever seen from him.

'There,' he said, 'I said it. Wasn't that hard after all.' She put her arms round his neck, pulled his mouth to hers and kissed him.

'Well done, you,' she breathed, then kissed him a lot, lot more.

ooOoo


	22. Chapter 22

**Disclaimer – I don't own the characters. They belong to ACD, MG and SM and the BBC. No one pays me to do this, I do it for love.**

**Chapter Twenty-One**

Saturday saw Sherlock enjoying an almost full house of visitors. John Watson arrived first. Having offered to sub the person who subbed him on Monday and Tuesday, he was on an afternoon/evening shift, so he called in to see his friend in the morning. Next to arrive was Mycroft who had stayed in town Friday night and was off to Hertfordshire, after seeing his brother. He brought good news and a gift. Handing his brother a large jiffy bag, he told him to look after it better, in future. Sherlock opened the bag to find his watch, redeemed from the pawn broker and returned by the Cumbrian police. Mycroft then advised Sherlock that his back pack had been returned, containing his Gucci shoes, Armani suit and Paul Smith shirt, amongst other things.

'Oh, and St Hugh's have returned your things from there, also, including your coat. You really should take more care of your possessions, brother. I've sent everything off to the cleaners. Well, apart from the camping clothes. You can decide what to do with those when you get home.'

The antibiotics had really started to kick in so Sherlock was feeling much better and, therefore, was experiencing the usual by-product of inactivity - boredom.

'So when can I get out of this place? I need to get back to work,' Sherlock stated.

'Whoa, chill, Bill,' John cautioned him. 'You have Lyme Disease. I expect they'll want to keep you for a day or two more, at least.'

Sherlock's face morphed into 'stroppy teenager' and he looked at Mycroft for support. John saw, in this conditioned response, the underlying cause of all the discord in the relationship between the siblings. There was a father-son dynamic at work here, not brother-brother. These two men were locked in a cycle from which neither seemed able to escape. Mycroft responded in the character of the role he had been assigned.

'I'll speak to the doctor. If he agrees, we could perhaps get you reassigned as a day patient. You would still have to come every day to give a blood sample.' Sherlock actually smirked! Mycroft left the room on his new mission. John shook his head, in despair.

'Childhood in a nutshell, alright!' he said, shaking his head.

'What?' asked Sherlock.

'How old are you?'

'You know how old I am. Why are you asking'

Well, you are channelling Kevin and Perry at the moment. You can't complain about Mycroft interfering in your life one minute and then treat him like your dad the next.'

'I don't do that!'

'Oh, yes, you do. You did it just now. You always expect him to sort things out for you.'

'But that's what he's good at. And he likes doing it.'

'Oh, so you do it for his sake. That's noble of you. Well, next time you want to complain about him trying to run your life, don't do it to me, OK?'

Sherlock lay back down on the bed and turned his back, rather pointedly, on John.

'Anyway,' said John, 'just to let you know, Molly and I solved the Case of the Decomposing Dwarf.'

Sherlock was so surprised by this revelation, he sat straight back up again but before there could be any elaboration, Mycroft returned with the doctor.

'Mr Holmes, your brother tells me you would like to be discharged. I'm happy with this, in principle, but I need to ask if you have anyone at home who will be able to take care of you, as you are only one week into what is potentially a four week course of treatment.'

'I have my housekeeper, Mrs Hudson, I'm sure she will be more than happy to keep an eye on me.'

'Sherlock, Mrs Hudson has gone to visit her sister. She was supposed to go last weekend but we needed her to look after William,' Mycroft interjected. Sherlock looked crestfallen. He really could not face another day of inactivity.

'Mycroft, you could hire me a nurse….'

'Sherlock!' John gave him a warning look.

'Oh, alright, I suppose I'll have to stay here, then. I don't suppose it matters seeing as John and Molly have taken over my case load, anyway,' he concluded and threw himself back on the bed. The doctor looked at him with mild astonishment, smiled, nodded and left the room. Both John and Mycroft took their leave also, leaving Sherlock to sulk alone.

ooOoo

Later in the day, Molly arrived with William, who knew that Saturday was Daddy's Treat Day, so insisted on visiting. William bounded into the room and jumped on the bed, waking Sherlock from his doze.

'Oh, William, you woke poor daddy up,' Molly chided.

'It's fine,' Sherlock assured her. 'I wasn't really asleep. Just trying to pass the time.'

'Oh, dear, you're bored, aren't you?' Molly sympathised and he gave her a baleful look.

'Well, it's a good job I brought you this then, isn't it.' She reached into her rather enormous hand bag and brought out his lap top. His face lit up like a child's.

'Oh, God, Molly, you are a life saver. I thought I was going to go crazy in here.' He beamed at her, then his expression changed.

'John says you and he solved the Decomposing Dwarf case,' he said, accusingly.

'Oh, yes, we did. It wasn't hard.'

'Really?' He looked dubious. Molly explained how they had cracked the case, whilst William sat in Sherlock's lap, holding the TV remote and watching the National Geographic channel. Once Sherlock got over his professional pique, he was actually quite impressed by the methodical way his two friends had gone about the task of solving the mystery.

'Oh, well, that's that then. No doubt John will be writing it up in his blog.'

'I think he already has, actually,' Molly replied.

'Oh, let's take a look then.' Sherlock shuffled William onto the bed beside him and, opening the laptop, he booted it up then brought up John's blog and found the reference: The Case of the Decomposing Dwarf. He began to read:

'Sherlock was a bit preoccupied recently, whilst taking a break in a convalescent home, following a short illness. He incapacitated a nurse, stole a staff car, ran the check point to escape from the high security convalescent home, hiked through a wood, dragging a dead badger, caught Lyme Disease, stole a land rover from a game keeper, which he drove to Watford Gap Services, got a lift to Carlisle, stayed in a homeless hostel, got his hair cut, pawned his watch, bought camping equipment, hiked to another wood, stole another car and drove to the Forth Road Bridge, where he attempted to jump into the Firth, by which time I, John Watson, caught up with him and stopped him from jumping off the bridge, thereby saving his life, yet again, then he collapsed and an ambulance took him to hospital. He was then flown by air ambulance to a London hospital, where he will remain until he recovers from the illness he contracted during his adventure.

Oh, and before he tried to jump off the bridge, he texted his girlfriend and told her, for the first time ever, that he loved her.

So whilst he was otherwise engaged, Molly and I solved the case,' and the blog went on to describe how.

Sherlock's eyes were open wide and his mouth formed a round 'O'. Then he said,

'Why has he written all that?'

'He thought the public would like to know,' Molly explained.

'Why would they want to know?' he asked.

'John says people are interested.'

Sherlock continued to stare at the blog, in disbelief.

'He says they like to know you are human,' Molly added

Sherlock was mortified. How could John have put all this personal information out into the public domain? And how could Molly possibly think it was alright to do so? Surely _she_ understood his need for privacy?

Privacy.

His eye moved to the 'Privacy' setting in the top right corner of the page and he saw just one word, 'Sherlock.' He looked at Molly and she was smiling.

'Oh, I see, so this is someone's idea of a joke,' Sherlock concluded. Molly had to giggle.

'John rang and told me about your little domestic, this morning. So he did this to get his own back and asked me to bring you your laptop so you could access it. And he told me what to say,' she admitted, squeezing his arm, to assuage him.

Sherlock had to concede, with a rueful smile, that he had been had. He snapped the laptop closed and put it on the bedside cabinet, out of the way, then pulled Molly down onto the bed beside him, and the three sat and watched TV for the rest of the afternoon.

ooOoo

Sherlock was allowed out of hospital on the Monday afternoon but Molly insisted he come and stay with her, at least for a few days, until Mrs Hudson got back from her sister's. Mycroft sent a car to collect him from the hospital, take him to Baker Street to collect some clothes and then on to Molly's flat. He was let in by Marie, who had collected William from school and was preparing the vegetables for the evening meal, to save Molly the job, when she got home from work. William was playing in his room. Sherlock sat on his son's bed and watched him play, joining in, as and when required.

Since he had regained all his memories, he had made a startling deduction. It had suddenly occurred to him that he had learned so many of his parenting skills from Rocky. The boy had been his role model, even though he'd had no conscious memories of him, at the time. But now he recognised Rocky's style of parenting in his own. Sitting on the bed, watching his son play and listening to his verbal commentary on his own game, Sherlock realised that, painful though it was to think of his dead friend, he didn't feel the bite of guilt and self-loathing he had before. John's words of wisdom had cut through those conceits and the knowledge that Rocky's death had been avenged by his 'family' had also helped. When the Rocky Foundation was ready to launch, he would go back to Rio, taking Molly and William, too, so he could introduce them to his other family, and oversee the establishment of the charity.

Later that night, he lay with Molly, coiled around her, as usual, in an introspective mood. He had been very thoughtful, the whole evening. Now, in the intimacy of this shared bed, Molly asked him what he was thinking about.

'I was thinking about me and Mycroft, about our relationship. I think it was the age gap that caused the problem.'

Molly propped herself up on one elbow and looked at him. She had been wanting to say something for so long and now was her opportunity. He had brought the subject up.

'Sherlock, what caused that problem was your parents abdicating their responsibility for you, and poor Mycroft stepping up to the plate. He did his best but he was too young. He never should have been put in that position.'

Sherlock was slightly taken aback by this diatribe but he saw that there was truth in what she said.

'Well, the age gap didn't help. Mycroft grew up and I was still a child. We would have had more in common if we had been closer in age.'

'Perhaps,' Molly agreed, lying back down and cuddling into him again.

'Anyway, what I mean to say is, if we are going to give William a brother or sister, we should do it sooner rather than later.'

Molly shot back up onto her elbow and looked at him in amazement.

'What did you just say?'

'I said that, if we are…'

'Yes, I heard what you said!'

'So why did you ask me what I said, then?' he asked, looking confused.

'Sherlock, are you saying you want more children?'

He thought about this for some time then said,

'Yes, I suppose I am. I mean, we've done a pretty good job so far – well, you've done most of the work but I'm here now so I could do more this time. Why are you looking at me like that? Have I said something wrong?'

'Does this mean we are more than friends with privileges, now?'

'Well, I thought so. Didn't you? I mean, we both know you love me and now we both know that…..I love you.' (It does get easier, the more times you say it, he thought.) 'So I would have thought that makes us more than friends with privileges, yes?' She was still propped up on her elbow, so he knew he was not out of the woods yet.

'If we were to have another child, would you move in here, full time, or would you still expect to live at 221b and just come here when it suited you?'

He hadn't even got that far in his thinking. God, women really did insist on covering all the bases, didn't they? He thought about it now.

'I could live here but keep 221b as my chambers, my work space. I could meet my clients there, do my experiments and, on the occasion when I pulled an all-nighter, I could do it there and it wouldn't disturb you or the children.'

'But you wouldn't pull all-nighters when the baby was really small, would you, because I would need you here, to help with the night feeding and things like that.'

Again, this was small detail but, clearly very important to her, he deduced.

'Alright, can I say I would try to avoid pulling all-nighters when the baby was really small but, if unavoidable, we would have to look to other means of coping, like asking Marie to stay over or Mrs Hudson or something like that.' He looked at her for a verdict on that suggestion. She lay back down and cuddled up again, still considering.

'You would like another baby, wouldn't you?' He hadn't even thought to ask her that, first. Maybe she didn't want another one. She looked into his eyes.

'I would love to have another baby.' He smiled and she smiled back.

'William is three and a quarter, so if we had another baby straight away, he would only be four and that is not such a big age gap,' Molly calculated.

'So you agree about the age gap,' he asked.

'To a point, yes,' she conceded.

'Is that settled then?'

'You don't want to sleep on it?' she asked

'What, d'you think we should start now? I don't know if I could. I mean, I just got out of hospital.'

'No, you idiot,' she giggled.

'Are you laughing at me, Molly Hooper?' His eyes suddenly became cold and hard, and his voice took on a menacing quality.

'Because I can soon wipe smile off you face,' he growled. He reached out and placed his hand on her throat, then slid it down to cup her breast, stroking her nipple with his thumb, watching her pupils expand and her lips part. He then moved his hand, lightly and smoothly, down her torso, over her hip and round the curve of her buttock, down her thigh to behind the knee. He hitched her leg up over his hip and, running his hand up to the small of her back, he pressed their bodies together, skin to skin. He inclined his head and, placing his mouth over hers, so slowly, so gently, he tugged at her top lip with his teeth then ran the tip of his tongue along the edge of her bottom lip, hearing her give that feral moan that he found so unimaginably stimulating.

Perhaps they would start now, after all.

ooOoo

**There it is, folks. My 'Demon' story is finished. Many thanks to everyone who has 'followed' and 'favourited' and a special thank you to all my reviewers, whose comments have been hugely encouraging and inspiring. Thank you, all, for sticking with it to the end. I hope it did not disappoint.**


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